Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s2.t10.4

v1.c5.s2.t10.4

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.”