106 Chinese Clay Figures 



the horn as an article of trade was always known, but not the animal 

 itself. 1 



The rdle played by the rhinoceros in Chinese art is limited. As 

 shown by the symbol illustrated in the Po ku fu lu (Fig. 18), it was 

 pictured in early antiquity; and other representations of that period 

 mentioned in Chinese records are discussed on p. 160. The animal lacks 

 those aesthetic qualities of form which tempt the brush of the painter; 

 and this may be the reason why despite the living rhinoceroses sent up as 

 tribute to the capital (see p. 80) it has never been immortalized on any 

 Chinese scroll known to us. 2 There is, however, one case on record. 

 Chang Shi-nan, who wrote the book Yu huan ki win early in the thir- 

 teenth century, 3 narrates that he once saw in Sze-ch'uan (Shu) the 

 painting of an unknown artist showing the outlines of a rhinoceros with 

 a horn on its nose. 4 The inhabitants of Sze-ch'uan, accordingly, were 

 familiar with the animal, and for this reason represented it correctly. 

 On some Buddhist pictures it may owe its existence to a mere lucky 

 chance; that is, to the fact that it was so copied from an Indian- 

 Buddhist model. On Yen Li-p&n's picture showing Samantabhadra's 

 elephant, 8 the rhinoceros is unmistakably contrasted with the elephant 

 as the smaller animal with scaly body, and head surmounted by a single 

 horn. Another illustration of the same subject is reproduced in Fig. 1 1 

 from Ch'eng shi mo yuan (Ch. 6 b, p. 16) published in the Wan- 

 li period, after 1605. Possibly it occurs also on the later typical paint- 

 ings of Buddha's Nirvana in the group of wailing animals. 6 On the 

 sculptures of Angkor- Vat the rhinoceros is represented as the vehicle of 

 the god Karttikeya. 7 



The Mongol emperors made practical use of the typical, conventional 

 designs of the rhinoceros on the standards of the army: there was a 

 standard with the picture of the animal se, "resembling an ox, with a 

 single horn, and of dark color," and another with a picture of the 



1 A modern Chinese school-book published at Shanghai in 1901, and illustrated by 

 Wu Tse-ch'eng of Su-chou, illustrates the word si with the cut of a rhinoceros of 

 European origin, and the word se with a jovial ox of his own invention; while the text 

 accompanying it, imbued with the spirit of the Shuo win and Erh ya, speaks of one 

 horn on the nose and three toes. 



2 It is likewise absent from classical Greek art. The marble relief of Pompeii, 

 the lamp from Labicum, and the coins of Domitian referred to, are the only known ex- 

 amples of its representation in late Roman art. 



3 Wylie, Notes, p. 165. 



4 The text is reprinted in T'u shu tsi ch'Sng, chapter on rhinoceros, hui k'ao, p. 5. 

 6 Reproduced in the writer's Jade, p. 342. 



6 See for example A. Grunwedel, Buddhistische Kunst in Indien, p. 1 14, or Bud- 

 dhist Art in India, p. 124 (in the right lower corner). 



7 According to M. G. Coedes, Les bas-reliefs d'Angkor-Vat, p. 12 (Paris, 191 1). 



