Felt (zhanhe 氈褐)

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by Sally K. Church

In the context of Faxian's Travels

The characters for "felt" are sometimes written differently. The word zhan 氈 means "something woven from fur (felt)". The word he 褐 has two meanings: a material woven from fur, and clothing made of coarse cloth. See the note by Zhao on Mencius' "Duke Wen of Teng, A" ("Teng wen gong, shang" 滕文公上). However, the "Vocabulary notes" (yinyi 音義) follow the note by Zheng Jian 鄭箋 on the Shijing 詩經 poem "Bin feng qi yue" 豳風七月, which says that it means cloth made of fur (mao bu 毛布), or cloth made of spun fur. The vocabulary sections of the Yuan and Qi editions both have the following note: "This is zhanhe 氊毼, felt cloth". Thus the Tang and Yuan dynasty vocabulary notes all describe it as felt.

- Zhang Xun 章巽, Faxian zhuan jiaozhu 法顯傳校注
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1985), p. 8, n. 5