Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s2.t10: Zebu
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s2.t10
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Zebu
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Fengniu is a kind of mammalian bovid with sarcoma on its shoulders and back which is native to India. Its alternate names include Fengniu (here, Feng refers to different characters in Chinese) and Zebu and it was famous for the physical characteristic that “there is eminentia (protuberance) of flesh in their neck.” According to the archaeological evidence, the domestication of Zebu began in the region of southern Asia 8,500 years ago. In the unearthed cultural relics from the Indus Valley Civilisation period, there are to be found seals depicting the Zebu. In ancient Indian myths, the most famous bull of this kind is Nandi, the mount of Siva. Owing to this, this kind of bull has been worshipped by Hindus in India.
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Detail from an Indian painting of an ox
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There are many records in documents of the Han and Tang dynasties of Fengniu in India and the Western Regions of present-day China. *Han Shu - Biography of the Western Regions* recorded that there were animals such as Fengniu, buffalo, elephants, big dogs, macaca and peacocks in Kawmira (present-day Kashmir). The *History of the Later Han Dynasty* (*Juan* 180) recorded that there were rare and valuable animals, such as lions, rhinoceros, Fengniu, peacocks and sparrows in Antiochia where the land was hot and wet. In the Wei and Jin dynasties, as well as the Sui and Tang dynasties, both Qiuci (present-day Kuqa, Xinjiang) and Samarkand (the region between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya) had Fengniu.
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There was no Fengniu in Central China previously and they were introduced from India and the Western Regions. In June of the second year of Yangjia in the Eastern Han period (133 CE), Shule (present day Kashgar, Xinjiang) presented the court with lions and Fengniu. In the Western Jin Dynasty, countries in the Western Regions offered more than 200 species of rare animals such as Ferghana horse, asbestos linen, Fengniu, peacocks and huge elephants as tribute. Fengniu had been introduced in the south of China even earlier. In the Classic Book of Mountains and Rivers, Fengniu was known as the “wild ox of the South.”
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*(Chen Ming)*