Watching the magnificently bad Indian nationalist movie-parading-as-message-of-peace, Dil Pardesi Ho Gayaa, which stars the stunning Salloni Aswani, I happened to notice the mention of the chinar tree, which is to be found in Kashmir and is apparently extremely important in Kashmiri culture and it is considered “the King/Queen of all the trees.”  It would seem that the name “originated from the Persian word “Chihnaarst” meaning fiery red color.”

As Sayat Nova fans will know, the ashugh often will compare the lithe figures of women to the chinar tree, as he does in Ashkharooms akh chim kashi:

Mechkt salboo-chinari pes, rangt frangi atlas e.

Your waist is like the cypress and chinar, your colour is that of French silk.

Update: Aur ha, there is another shared borrowing in Armenian poetry and colloquial Hindi.  Sayat Nova has a poem called Eshkhemet hivandatsil im (I have become sick from your love), where eshkh is the Armenian rendering of ishq, which I assume must be originally taken from Arabic.  Language bleg: does anyone know for certain what language ishq comes from?