一切經音義 16.8

16.8

貘豹 (Mòbào, tapirs and leopards: the upper character has the sound mò. The Shanhai jing says: 'The Southern Mountains have many tapirs and leopards.' Guo Pu says: 'The tapir resembles a brown bear but is smaller, yellow-black in colour, with lustrous hair; it can eat copper and iron, and comes from Shu.' The Erya says: 'The mò is a white leopard.' The Shuowen says: 'It takes its classifier from 豸.' Sūtra texts often omit this character mò; having now checked the Sanskrit text and found it present, it has been added, as in accordance with the textual phrasing it ought to be there. The lower character has the fanqie Bao-mao [bào]. The Shuowen says: 'A beast that resembles a tiger, with round patterns of black rosettes, but smaller than a tiger. It also takes its classifier from 豸.' The pronunciation of 豸 is zhì. Leopard is a phono-semantic character).