History of the Rhinoceros 115 



rhinoceros — owing to the single horn — is the product of a much later 

 period; this is not the starting-point, but the final result of the matter. 

 It is, of course, necessary to assume that this result was brought about 

 in India itself; 1 otherwise it would be unintelligible why it appears on 

 the surface in the Cyranides and in China. 2 In my opinion, we are even 



"In the eighth year of the period Yiian-k'ang (298 a.d.) it was in the territory of 

 Kiu-chen (in Tonking) that hunters captured a wild animal of the size of a horse with 

 one horn, the horn being soft as the core of the young antlers of the deer (lujung). 

 This is identical with the animal chui. At present men sometimes meet it in the dense 

 mountainous jungles, and there are among them also those without horn." Kiu-chen 

 is situated in>Tonking; and on p. 81 mention has been made of the tribute of a live rhi- 

 noceros sent from there to the Emperor Ling (168-188 a.d.); indeed, that region was 

 always famed for this animal, which is apparently intended in the text of Kuo P'o. 

 The same conception of the rhinoceros as a horse or horse-like animal with a single 

 horn is met likewise in the West. The ancients enumerate altogether five animals as 

 having single horns, the Indian ass first traceable to Ctesias, the single-horned ox, 

 the monoceros, the single-horned horse, and the oryx of Africa. Strabo (xv, 56) 

 quotes from Megasthenes' remarks upon Indian animals that there are horses in 

 India with one horn. Aelian (Nat. anitn., in, 41) says, "India, it is reported, pro- 

 duces horses with a single horn, likewise single-homed asses. Cups are made from 

 these horns; and if a mortal poison is poured into them, it will do no harm to him who 

 drinks it, for the horn of both animals seems to be an antidote against poison." In 

 another chapter (xvi, 20) Aelian describes the unicorn of the Indians, "called by 

 them kartazonos [a word apparently connected with Assyrian kurkizannu, mentioned 

 above, p. 87], said to equal in size a full-grown horse." Horace (Serm., 1, 5, 58-60) 

 speaks of a wild horse having a single horn in the midst of its forehead. As a matter 

 of fact, the rhinoceros has no similarity to a horse; and it is difficult to see how the 

 simile could ever arise. The bare fact remains, however, that it did; but it is incon- 

 ceivable that this notion, not founded on a natural observation, could spontaneously 

 spring up in the West and East alike. There is no other way out of this puzzle than 

 to presume that India, to which the account of Megasthenes reproduced by Strabo 

 and Aelian refers, is responsible for this idea, and disseminated it to the West and to 

 China. 



1 It may be pointed out in this connection, though it is not wholly conclusive for 

 the present case, that the Sanskrit word vdrdhranasa means a rhinoceros and an old 

 white goat-buck. 



2 We meet also in ancient China a unicorn conceived of as a wild goat. This is 

 the animal termed chai (No. 245) and hiai (No. 4423) chai. The fundamental passage 

 relating to it is in the Annals of the Later Han Dynasty (Hou Han shu, Ch. 40, p. 3), 

 where a judicial cap in the shape of this animal, and worn by the censors, is mentioned. 

 The definition given of the animal in the text of the Annals is, "A divine goat (shin 

 yang) which is able to discriminate between right and wrong, and which the king 

 of Ch'u used to capture." Huai-nan-tse is quoted in K'ang-hi (under hiai) as saying 

 that King Wen of Ch'u was fond of wearing hiai caps; the un-Chinese word hiai chai, 

 therefore, will probably be a word of the language of Ch'u (T. de Lacouperie, Les 

 langues de la Chine avant les Chinois, p. 17, Paris, 1888), as above all proved by the 

 vacillating modes of writing (Forke, Lun-heng, pt. II, p. 321). The comment added 

 to the text of Hou Han shu is extracted from / wu chi, which may be read in Schle- 

 gel's Uranographie chinoise, p. 587 (it is, of course, impossible, as proposed by Schle- 

 gel, to identify the animal with the Tibetan chiru; see below, p. 120). It is not stated 

 in Hou Han shu nor in / wu chi (nor in K'ang-hi) that "it eats fire in its ravenous fury, 

 even to its own destruction " (Giles). This is a subsequent addition which arose un- 

 der the influence of Buddhist art. F. W. K. Muller (Feestbundel aan P. J. Veth, 

 p. 222, Leiden, 1894) has recognized correctly that this explanation is derived from 

 the iconography of the animal, which is represented as being surrounded by flames. 

 Muller, however, omits to state that this is a secondary development, which has 

 nothing to do with the previous pre-Buddhistic conception of the creature on Chinese 

 soil, when it was not equipped with flames, nor set in relation with a lion. The 



