Textual Research on Interpretation of Names of Herbal “Jinyanxiang”

OBJECTIVE to clarify the ambiguous relationship between Jinyanxiang's name and nature, identify the object of Jinyanxiang, in order to play its part in traditional Chinese medicine, aroma culture and other aspects through textual research. METHODS In this study, textual research on herbal substantive, including substantive of Jinyanxiang, the imported aroma, was from some perspectives such as:specific traits such as sort, shape, smell, texture and lighted cigarettes, producing area, other aspects in documents and records based on three references about it from Xiangsheng, in combination of comparison between and analysis of several documents of herbal medicine such as Chinese Pharmacopoeia and Newly Revised Materia Medica etc, and other ones like Proofread and Annotated on Zhufanzhi, Proofread and Paraphrased on Zhufanzhi. RESULTS Through textual research, this study held the view that Jinyanxiang was resin of Styrax. Research on its character showed that Myrrh and Styrax in Chinese Pharmacopoeia were more congruent with records of Jinyanxiang in ancient books. Through place of origin research, this study could figure out that ancient Styrax was not the modern one;Jinyanxiang was not ancient Styrax or ancient Myrrh, which clarify the relationship among Jinyanxiang, ancient Styrax and modern Styrax. CONCLUSION The relationship between Jinyanxiang's name and its nature is a moot point, and now it is solved mainly through this study.