Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s2.t9.6

v1.c5.s2.t9.6

The section on Records of Foreign Countries in *Juan* 54 of the *Book of the Liang Dynasty* recorded that Funan sent envoys who offered auspicious Indian sandalwood images, sala leaves, fire balls, saffron and storax in the 18ᵗʰ year of Tianjian (519 CE). Several places offered saffron as tribute to the Tang Dynasty as well. In *Juan* 198 of the *Book of the Old Tang Dynasty*, it is recorded that King Siladitya sent envoys to Chang’an in the 15ᵗʰ year of the Zhen Guang reign (641 CE), and sent envoys several times with offerings of saffron and bodhi trees. *Essentials of the Tang Dynasty* (*Juan* 100) recorded that Kapi offered saffron in the 21ˢᵗ Year of Zhen Guang (647). It noted that “its leaves looked like those of the ophiopogon root, its flowers bloomed in September and looked like cotton rose hibiscus in purple and green and its fragrance can be smelt from over 10 steps away. It doesn’t have seeds, so it must be planted from the root.” *Juan* 221 of the *New Book of the Tang Dynasty* recorded that the king of the Dong’an Kingdom in the Western Regions sent envoys to offer Persian mules, bigleaf hydrangea, saffron and refined sugar in the 22ⁿᵈ year of Kaiyuan (734 CE). The scholar Edward Hetzel Schafer pointed out that this kind of plant was introduced into China in the Middle Ages and that saffron powder sold well in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, it was used as an aromatic drug/medicine made out of the fragrance of the plant to treat toxins in the body. The Tang and Song *Materia Medica* and the *Compendium of Materia Medica* of the Ming Dynasty recorded the properties of saffron.