122 



Chinese Clay Figures 



Fig. 14. 

 Se-ru as Emblem of Long Life (from Tibetan Wood-engraving). 



word bse-ru rendered by Chinese shen yang ("divine goat"); 1 and this 

 is thus far the only literary indication which I am able to trace in 

 regard to a Tibetan unicorn of goat-like character. 2 



Such a bse-ru is represented on a Tibetan woodcut as an emblem of 

 long life {bse-ru ts'e rih; Fig. 14). The picture, of which it forms a 



1 The Manchu has the artificial formation Sengkitu, and three other words 

 besides, — Sacintu, tontu, and tubitu (see Sacharov, Manchu-Russian Dictionary, 

 P- 734). — f° r tne designation of this unicorn. It will be remembered that the term 

 shin yang occurs in Hou Han shu in defining the unicorn hiai chai (p. 115, note 2). 



2 The Mongols have adopted seru as a loan-word from Tibetan in the sense of 

 "rhinoceros," as stated by Kovalevski and Golstunski in their Mongol dictionaries; 

 but they take the word also in the sense of a "deer," as shown by the Mongol transla- 

 tion of the Tibetan medical work translated into Russian by A. Pozdnayev (Vol. I, 

 p. 288). The Mongol equivalent of Tibetan bse-ru and Chinese si kio is here bodi 

 gilrugasun ("the animal of the bodhi," Sanskrit bodhimriga) ; that is, the gazelle. 

 Besides, the Mongols have a seemingly indigenous word for "rhinoceros," — kiris, 

 keris, or kers-un &bar. 



