History of the Rhinoceros 75 



se niu and si appear to be two different species of rhinoceros. Also 

 G. Deveria 1 has translated se and si by "rhinoceros." 



Bretschneider, both a naturalist and an eminent sinologue, upheld 

 the opinion that the rhinoceros, and goblets made from rhinoceros-horn, 

 are repeatedly mentioned in the Chinese classics, and that the latter has 

 been reputed from time immemorial for its antipoisonous virtues. He 

 refers the saying that rhinoceros-horn cures all poisons, to the Shen-nung 

 pen ts'ao king, attributed by tradition to the mythical Emperor Shen-nung, 

 at all events the most ancient Chinese materia medica in existence. 2 



In the first edition of his Chinese-English Dictionary, Professor 

 Giles, the eminent sinologue at the University of Cambridge, Eng- 

 land, attributed to both se and si the meaning of "rhinoceros," with- 

 out establishing a distinction between the two. In the second edition, 

 however, we read under se (No. 10,298), "A bovine animal, figured as a 

 buffalo with one horn, known as the se niu. Another name for the si 

 4128; see 8346 for its confusion with the rhinoceros." Under the last- 

 named heading it is said that the term si niu is "a bovine animal, 

 figured as a buffalo with a single horn;" with the addition that the 

 traditional "rhinoceros" of foreigners seems to be wholly wrong. 

 Further, the reader is requested to correct No. 4128 si, where the 

 meanings "tapir" and "rhinoceros" had been given. In his "Adver- 

 saria Sinica" (p. 394), Mr. Giles has expounded more in detail the 

 reasons which induced him to make these alterations. The arguments 

 advanced by him are briefly three: 1. The rhinoceros is known to the 

 Chinese as pi kio, "nose-horn." 2. In two passages of Chao Ju-kua 

 (translation of Hirth and Rockhill, pp. 118, 233), rhinoceroses are 

 spoken of as being shot with arrows, while Giles finds it stated in the 

 T'u shu tsi ch'eng that arrows cannot pierce the hide of the rhinoceros. 

 3. The si and the se are figured in the latter work as slightly differing 



1 Histoire des relations de la Chine avec l'Annam, p. 88 (Paris, 1880). 



2 Chinese Recorder, Vol. VI, 1875, p. 19, and Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 153. 

 Regarding the materia medica current under the name of Shen-nung see Bret- 

 schneider (Botanicon Sinicum.pt. 1, pp. 27-32). Bretschneider, though believing 

 that in India the people from time immemorial attribute the same antipoisonous vir- 

 tues to the rhinoceros-horn as the Chinese do, says he cannot believe that the Chinese 

 have borrowed this practice from the Hindu or vice versa. The Hindu conception is 

 not attested by any passage in Sanskrit literature, but only by Ctesias and Aelian 

 who state that drinking-vessels made from the horn of the unicorn safeguard from 

 poison and various diseases. The belief is likewise absent among the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, in whose records the number of references to rhinoceros-horn is exceedingly 

 small (H. Blumner, Technologie und Terminologie der Gewerbe und Kunste, 

 Vol. II, p. 358). There is no evidence that the Chinese notions are due to any stimulus 

 received from outside; they appear, on the contrary, as legitimate offshoots grown on 

 Taoist soil. The Chinese likewise conceived the idea of carving rhinoceros-horn into 

 cups, girdle-plaques, and fanciful ornaments. We shall come back to these various 

 points in detail. Compare p. 154, note. 



