i. The Word
Beh, from Mid. Pers. bēh or bīh (byh), also written bahī or behī (with ī from īk), cannot be traced further back than Mid. Pers., and an attempt to reconstruct older forms would be futile because too many possibilities are open. The initial consonant being always b, the word cannot be equated with New Pers. beh (good, better), which is from Mid. Pers. vēh and Old Pers. vahyu. Nevertheless this has long been a cherished folk-etymology, as shown in the phrase behī wa hūa ḵayr (likewise also in Ṭabarī, I, p. 1049 l. 14) and in a punning half-verse by Jāmī, andar kaf-e to beh-ī če nīkūʾst. In contrast, the Arabic word for quince safarjal is popularly supposed to be made up of safar (journey) and jalā (exile) and therefore to be inauspicious (ZDMG 68, 1914, p. 275). In Eastern Turkish, behī (in Sart bahī) reappears as an obviously borrowed Iranian word (M. Räsänen, Versuch eines etymologischen Wörterbuches der Türksprachen, Helsinki, 1969, p. 68a).
The ideogram for Mid. Pers. byh given in the Frahang ī Pahlavīk (4.20, slightly garbled) is Aramaic səfargəlā, which corresponds to Talmudic ispargəlā and Syriac espergəlā and was taken into Arabic as safarjal (I. Löw, Aramäische Pflanzenname, Leipzig, 1881, p. 114 and passim). This word goes back to the middle of the Assyrian period, being attested by Akkadian supurgillu (in one text ša-par-gil-lu; W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, Wiesbaden, 1959-, p. 1061a), which must have been a borrowing from some foreign language. A place name uruSu-pur-gi-il-lu (probably referring to local abundance of quinces) occurs in an inscription of Tigletpilesar III (745-27 b.c.). The undoubtedly late and artificial ideogram for quince is gišḫašḫur/šennur-kur-ra, i.e., “apple” or “medlar of the highland” or “the foreign land.” The word from its appearance might be Indo-European and specifically Iranian (perhaps spargo + al), but it cannot be traced further back (see Eilers, “Demawend,” Archív Orientální 22, 1954, p. 370). The Armenian word for quince serkewil sounds vaguely similar.
In addition to beh or bahī and Arabic safarjal, literary texts present another word for quince, namely ābī “juicy” (cf. New Pers. golābī replacing amrūd, the older word for pear). As early as the 5th/11th century ābī is given as a synonym for bahī, with a citation from Farroḵī, in the Loḡat-e fors of Asadī Ṭūsī (ed. ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran, 1319 Š./1940, p. 520). The Arabic adjective bahī and noun bahā (brilliance) are derived from New Pers. āb (Ancient Indian ābhā) in the sense of polish (ZDMG 67, 1913, pp. 491f.).
Further words for quince current in the Alborz region are listed by Ḥ. Ṯābetī (Deraḵtān-e jangalī-e Īrān, Tehran, 1326 Š./1947, p. 97): šaḡālbeh, sometimes contracted to šālbeh, in Māzandarān, Rāmīān, Katūl; tūč in Lāhījān, Daylamān, Rūdsar; sanga at Rāmsar, Šahsavār; hīvā or āyvā at Āstārā. The last has been adopted by the Turks as their word for quince, ayva. None of these synonyms gives a clue to the etymology of New Pers. beh.
Wild quince trees are found in the Caucasus, and the cultivated variety may have originated there. The Greek name “Cydonian apple” indicates that Cydonia in the northwest of Crete was a halfway house in the spread of the quince to Europe. Always and still renowned are the quinces of Isfahan, which are big and juicy and can be eaten raw. In ancient times the quince was valued as an aphrodisiac and customarily given to brides to eat before their weddings. Among the Moslems in the middle ages, the quince was important in fortune-telling and dream-interpretation (for details, see P. Schwarz, ZDMG 67, 1913, pp. 491ff.; A. Fischer, ZDMG 67, pp. 681ff., and ZDMG 68, 1914, pp. 275ff.; I. Eisenberg, ZDMG 68, 1914, p. 226). Furthermore quinces and quince seeds (behdāna) were used in medicine (Schlimmer, Terminologie, p. 175).
Place names in which beh demonstrably means quince are rare. According to Razmārā, Farhang VI, p. 64, the name of Behbahān, a city in southwestern Iran near the ruins of Arrajān, means “tent,” perhaps being a collective plural of *behān from Mid. Pers. *vidān.
Behestān (Old. Pers. Bagastāna, Greek tò Bagístanon ʾóros), today Bīsotūn, the site of the famous cliff-inscription of Darius, can be interpreted as “quince orchard” but of course originally meant “abode of the god.”
According to Yāqūt (cited by Schwarz, Iran, p. 724), there was another Behestān in the district of Qazvīn. Razmārā has entries for villages named Deh-Beh (Quince Village?) near Fīrūzābād (Farhang VII), Behdān, and another Behestān in the district of Zanjān (vol. 2), Behak and another Behdān (vol. 9).
In the village names Behābād (Farhang, vols. 9 and 10), Behdeh and Behūya (vol. 7), the beh component is unlikely to mean quince and almost certainly means good (cf. the numerous toponyms of the Sasanian period with prefixed vēh). For other entries in gazetteers no evidence in support of either meaning is available.
The old name Behrūd for the Oxus (Jayḥūn, Āmū Daryā) is derived from Mid. Pers. Vēhrōt (Good River) and had nothing to do with quinces.