The Li Yuen says: “If the unicorn can once be tamed, then the other beasts will not show terror.”
Ta Tai, in the Li Ki, quoting the Yih [King], says there are 360 kinds of hairy creatures, and the Ki-Lin is the chief of them.
The Li Ki, commenting on the King Fang I Chw‘en, says: “The Lin has a Kiun’s body, an ox’s tail, a horse’s hoof, and is of five colours. It is twelve feet high.”[301]
Again, in commenting on Fuh Kien’s Ho Chwen, it says: “The Lin springs from the earth’s central regions. It is a beast of superior integrity, is attached to its mother, and reducible to rule. The Shu King, quoting Luh Li, says the Lin has a Kiun’s body, an ox’s tail, a horse’s feet, and a yellow colour, round hoofs, and one horn; the tip of the horn is erect and fleshy.
“Its call in the middle part thereof is like a monastery bell. Its pace is regular; it rambles only on selected grounds and after it has examined the locality. It will not live in herds, or be accompanied in its movements. It cannot be beguiled into pitfalls, or captured in snares. When the monarch is virtuous, this beast appears.”
At present there are Lin existing on the frontiers of Ping Cheu. Even the large or small Lin are always like deer, so that this species is not the auspicious Ying Lin; although Tsz Ma Siang Su,[302] in his odes on the shooting of the Mi and trapping Lin, says that it is.
The top of the horn being fleshy is a characteristic of the Lin, and Mao Chw‘en says that the Lin’s horn is an emblem of goodness. Ching Tsien says that the horn has a fleshy termination, indicating the peaceful character of the beast, and that it has no use for it.
The “Book of Rites,” quoting the Kwang Ya, says that on account of its elegant style it takes place, par excellence, among the large-horned beasts; the existing edition of the Kwang Ya omits this.
The Kung Yang Chw‘en says the Kiun also has horns.
Kung Ssun Tsz, in the annals of the fourteenth year of the Duke Ngai (State of Lu), says that the Kiun has fleshy horns.