History of the Rhinoceros 171 



themselves should they break their word. 1 As Wang Fu says in the 

 Po ku Vu lu (quoted above, p. 131), the rhinoceros represented on the 

 bronze wine-kettles of the Shang period was a fit emblem to serve as a 

 warning to the drinker, and to inculcate in him moderation: as the 

 rhinoceros is capable of doing injury to man, so excessive indulgence 

 in spirits might harm him. 2 



We now recognize that the rhinoceros, looked upon as a moral and 

 educational factor, moves on the same line as the monoceros hiai-chai 

 discussed above (p. 115), which is able to decide judicial proceedings. 3 

 This inward affinity proves that this monoceros is a legitimate offshoot 

 of the rhinoceros. We have seen that the single-horned rhinoceros se 

 existed in the country of Ch'u in the beginning of the Chou dynasty 

 (p. 160), and it was among the people of Ch'u that the notion and word 

 hiai chai originated (p. 115). The transformation into a goat of what 

 originally was the rhinoceros was developed by the notion of "butting" 

 under the influence of a legend emanating from Ch'u, which unfortunate- 

 ly is lost. 



In past times the rhinoceros was so plentiful in the home of the 

 Chinese, that carvings from its horn belonged to the common household 

 objects, especially at the period before the utilization of metals, when 

 wood, bone, horn, antler, and stone furnished the material for the making 

 of implements. 



There are other objects stated to have been made of rhinoceros- 

 horn, where the supposition that ox-horn might be involved is again 

 out of the question. In the biography of Li Se, who died in B.C. 208, 4 

 objects carved from rhinoceros-horn and ivory {si siang k'i) are men- 

 tioned, and classed among objets de vertu. b Implements of ox-horn 

 would certainly not rank in this category. According to Hou Han shu, 6 

 seals were cut out of rhinoceros-horn and ivory. Everybody knows the 



1 Tschepe, /. c. The warlike character of the rhinoceros is still indicated by the lit- 

 erary designation Si pu for the Board of War (Ping pu) and the rhinoceros forming 

 the badge of the ninth grade of the military officials. 



2 The rhinoceros as a means of punishment appears also in the case of Wan of 

 Sung, who paid the penalty of his crimes by being bound up in a rhinoceros-hide ( Tso 

 chuan, Chuang kung, twelfth year: Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. V, p. 89). 



3 In the time of the philosopher Wang Ch*ung, who wrote his work Lun king in 

 82 or 83 A.D., Kao Yao and this creature were painted in the courtyards of public 

 buildings; the latter, in agreement with the ancient definitions, apparently as a goat 

 with a single horn, for it instinctively knew the guilty. When Kao Yao administered 

 justice and entertained doubts of a man's guilt, he ordered this goat to disentangle 

 the case: it butted the guilty party, but spared the innocent (Forke, Lun-heng, 

 pt. 11, p. 321). 



4 Giles, Biographical Dictionary, p. 464. 



5 Shi ki, Ch. 87, p. 2 b. 



6 Ch. 40, p. 5 a. 



