Indo-Iranian Journal Pub Date : 2020-11-11 , DOI: 10.1163/15728536-06304002 Péter-Dániel Szántó 1
The present paper, an homage to B. Laufer’s “Asbestos and Salamander” (1915), adds South Asia to the story of a remarkable Eurasian cultural meme meant to explain the presence of fire-proof cloth after its manufacturing technology was forgotten, namely that asbestos was the fur of a mythical animal. I argue that none of our Sanskrit dictionaries contain the correct meaning of the term agniśauca, which does indeed mean asbestos. The widely shared motif explains why in Sanskrit literature too we have animals (a nondescript mṛga) by the same name. I examine textual passages from kāvya, purāṇas, as well as Buddhist sūtras and śāstras, to elucidate this topic. I also cite some evidence that in the period between the 9th and the 11th c. some areas of India still possessed knowledge of asbestos manufacturing. However, as for where and when the correlation was first made, I must leave the question open.
中文翻译:
印度的石棉和Sal
本文是为了向B. Laufer的《石棉和Sal》(1915年)致敬,将南亚带入了一个非凡的欧亚文化模因故事,该故事旨在解释防火布在制造技术被遗忘之后的存在,即石棉是一种神话动物的皮毛。我认为我们的梵语词典中没有一个包含“ agniśauca ”一词的正确含义,而“ agniśauca”的确表示石棉。广泛使用的母题解释了为什么在梵文文献中我们也有同名的动物(一种非描述性动物)。我研究了卡维亚,purāṇa以及佛教sūtra和śāstra的文字段落s,以阐明该主题。我还列举了一些证据,表明在第9至11 c年之间。印度的某些地区仍然拥有石棉制造知识。但是,关于首次建立关联的时间和地点,我必须悬而未决。