Note 97 — Chapter XIII · The Symbolism of Jade

There was warm rhinoceros horn and cold rhinoceros horn, as there was warm jade and cold jade. A Chinese work of the eighth century mentions “cold-dispelling rhinoceros horn (pi han si), whose colour is golden.97… During the winter months it spreads warmth which imparts a genial feeling to man.” Another work speaks of “heat-dispelling rhinoceros horn (pi shu si).… During the summer months it can cool off the hot temperature.” Girdles of “wrath-dispelling” horn caused men “to abandon their anger”; hair-pins, combs, &c., were made from “dust dispelling” horn. Rhinoceros horn had, like jade, healing properties. A fourth-century Chinese writer tells that “the horn can neutralize poison because the animal devours all sorts of vegetable poisons with its food”. Chinese drug stores still stock shavings of the horn to cure fever, smallpox, ophthalmia, &c.98 According to S. W. Williams99 “a decoction of the horn shavings is given to women just before parturition and also to frighten children”. A medicine is prepared from rhinoceros skin, too. Laufer states that “the skin, as well as the horn, the blood, and the teeth, were medicinally employed in Cambodja, notably against heart diseases.… In Japan rhinoceros horn is powdered and used as a specific in fever cases of all kind.” Dragon bones were used in like manner in China. It is of importance to note that the rhinoceros horn derived its healing qualities because the animal fed on plants and trees provided with thorns.100 Like the dragon, the rhinoceros had an intimate connection with certain plants; like the ginseng-devouring goat, it carried in its blood the virtue of the plants and herbs it devoured. In Tibet and China the rhinoceros became confused with the stag, antelope, and goat with one horn. It was the prototype of the unicorn. In India and Iran it was confused with the horse. There is in Chinese lore a “spiritual rhinoceros (ling si)” with the body of an ox, the hump of a zebu, cloven feet, the snout of a pig, and a horn in front.101 It may be that in ancient times the lore connected with the hippopotamus was transferred by the searchers for pearls, precious stones, and metals to the Chinese “water-rhinoceros”. Like the composite wonder-beast in the Osirian hall of judgment, which tore the unworthy soul to pieces, the rhinoceros had its place in judicial proceedings in China. In its goat form it solved a difficult case when Kas Yas administered justice by butting the guilty party and sparing the innocent.102