Creature of the Week: Qilin
Names: Qilin, Kirin, Lin (Female version), Chinese Unicorn
You may know it from: Nothing. You know it from nothing. Not anything transphobic. Nope. Also, Monster Hunter. Also Final Fantasy 14.
Dear Reader,
I’m sorry for choosing so many quadripedal animals in a row, next one will be like a snake of some kind, or a ball… maybe. Nevertheless, the Qilin differs in a very distinctive way from the previous creatures featured in this column: unlike them, it is peaceful. The Qilin is one of the four benevolent creatures in Chinese mythology, an honor which is shared with the tortoise, phoenix, and dragon. All four animals are good omens; in particular, the Qilin can predict the birth of a royal. Famously, a Qilin prophesied Confucius's birth by bringing a jade tablet to his mother. The Qilin represents how emperors should act with its behavior and appearance. The bo-horse is another mythical creature with similar characteristics. It is a gentle and peace-loving creature, able to tread softly enough to walk on water. Despite its peaceful nature, the Qilin is capable of great might, akin to a sheathed sword. This idea is represented in the creature’s most defining element, a horn concealed in flesh, which symbolizes that the Qilin is peaceful by nature but violent by opposition. It does not want battle but is always ready for it. Other aspects of the Qilin’s design also represent this idea, such as its scales, which are represented by the homophone “lin” in its name. Its scales are gentle, sparse, and light yet effective armor. Because the Qilin represents the royal ideal, any injury done to it is tantamount to the decline of that ideal. In another story about Confucius, a dead Qilin was put at his feet by hunters and he understood it as a sign of moral decline.
While these elements of the Qilin remained the same over time, its physical form can change depending on the story. Early on, the Qilin was described by Lu Ji as having the “body of a deer, the tail of an ox, a horse's lower legs, yellow color, round hooves and one horn.” Notice how that description includes nothing about its neck. In 1414, the Yongle Emperor received a diplomatic gift from Bengal of multiple giraffes. The giraffes soon became associated with the qilin. The Yongle Emperor began his dynasty by overthrowing his nephew, and sought to declare the “exotic” giraffes as Qilin to legitimize his rule. Strangely, the artistic depictions of giraffes did not change to look more like Qilin; the artistic depictions of the Qilin instead changed to look like giraffes. The Qilin’s hooves, tail, and hindlegs all stayed relatively the same. In fact, the scholar Xie Zhaozhe described the giraffes as “Like the [common description] and utterly different.” The obvious difference between the Qilin and the giraffe was the neck, but there was another significant difference: in place of one flesh-colored horn, the giraffe had two. This led to the creation of a new variation called the “Qilin-Giraffe,”which became a popular design. This depiction was so pervasive that in Japan and Korea, the term for giraffe is “Kirrin” (or Qilin). There were attempts to reconvene the two images: badges of both decorate the corpse of the duke Xu Fu, and both variations appear in the Qing dynasty encyclopedia Gujin tushu jicheng.
While the Qilin began as a symbol of the eternal value of good emperors, this value shifted over time as dynasties changed. The Qilin, which originally predicted the rule of emperors and challenged their legitimacy, had its own legitimacy challenged by an emperor, which completely changed its form. The Qilin-Giraffe is akin to the corpse put before Confucius as a sign of the myth’s decline, it is not a complete perversion of the original Qilin. The Qilin’s horns were doubled, but they were still covered in flesh to represent its docility. The Qilin’s behavior remained relatively the same: it was still peaceful and gentle. While the Qilin and the representation of royal responsibility it embodies have changed, some ideas have remained universal. Despite the changes to systems of government since the Qilin’s creation, pacifism despite great strength is an eternal value.