How the Giraffe Became a Qilin: Intercultural Signification in Ming Dynasty Arts

This chapter explores meanings attributed to a giraffe given to the Yongle emperor (r. 1403–1424) in 1414 by a Muslim sultan of Bengal. Both sides understood its significance in ways mediated by their own cultural traditions and pertinent agendas. Although a Hindu nobleman was the de facto ruler of Bengal, the giraffe probably was presented in the Persian-Islamic terms favored by that kingdom at that time. In China, the exotic animal was identified as a qilin, an animal recorded in ancient texts as an auspicious sign indicating that the ruler was powerful yet fostered peace, an image useful to the Yongle emperor. The author argues that by the fifteenth century some of the ideas circulating in Islamic cultures about giraffes were sufficiently close to Chinese ones about qilin and tribute animals to create an apparent confluence of significations.