Benzoin -- Ma Huan (ca. 1433 CE)

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Ma Huan on Benzoin in Palembang

The products of the land include such things as the ‘crane’s crest bird’, yellow su incense, laka-wood, sinking incense, jinyin incense, [and] yellow wax. Jinyin incense is not produced either in the Central Country or in any other country; this incense resembles the black glue used by silversmiths for inlaying silver articles; inside there is a lump like a kind of white wax in the middle; superior qualities have much white and little black, inferior qualities have much black and little white; [and] when you burn this incense, the scent is very pungent and irritates the nose; the western foreigners and the So-li people are very fond of this incense.

- J. V. G. Mills, Palembang, 100-101.

Mills' note on the above passage says:

“Giles, nos. 2032; 23,253; a transliteration of Malay kemenyan; gum benjamin or benzoin (Wheatley, ‘Commodities’, p. 56; 0. W. Wolters, ‘The Po-ssu Pine Trees’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. XXIII pt. 2. (1960), p. 336). Pelliot thought that Ma Huan’s chin-yin incense was probably sweet benjamin, and he identified benjoin (benzoin) with the substance called by the Chinese ‘An-hsi [Parthian, Persian] aromatic’ (Pelliot, ‘Voyages’, p. 382); but Wheatley and Wolters in the articles above quoted have demonstrated that after the eighth century the name ‘An-hsi aromatic’ was applied to the Sumatran benzoin, which is the resinous product of trees of the genus Styrax.”

- J. V. G. Mills, Palembang, 100-101, n.5

Ma Huan on Benzoin in Dhofar

When the treasure-ships of the Central Country arrived there, after the reading of the imperial will and the conferment of presents was finished, the king sent chiefs everywhere to issue instructions to the people of the country [and] they all took such things as frankincense, [Ma Huan, p. 54] dragon’s-blood, aloes, myrrh, benzoin, liquid storax, and mubiezi, and came to barter them for hemp-silk, porcelain ware, and other such articles. (Mills, pp. 152-153)

Mills' note on the above passage says:

“This benzoin (An hsi hsiang, Giles, not. 44; 4034; 4256, ‘Persian aromatic’) is gum-gugul, an aromatic gum-resin obtained from trees of the Balsamodendron species and from Boswellia serrata (Wheatley, ‘Commodities’, p. 55.)”

- J. V. G. Mills, Dhufar, p. 153, n. 3