At the word unicorn, our imaginations skyrocket. Most of us see a unicorn as a fabulous creature woven of light: a white horse with blue eyes like the spring sky and a horn in the middle of the forehead, more reminiscent of a clear month …
Instead of water, he drinks morning dew, and feeds on flower petals. The water of the lakes in which he bathes becomes alive and heals from all diseases.
According to legends, the unicorn does not allow anyone to approach him, except for a girl with a pure body and soul. And you can only keep it with a golden bridle.
Interestingly, each nation had its own unicorn.
On the opposite surfaces of the Babylonian amulet-cylinder that has survived to our time, dating back to about 1800 BC, two unicorns are depicted as a symbol of the two sides of the Tree of Life.
For the Sumerians, the unicorn was a symbol of the moon and virgin purity.
Among the ancient Chinese, the first mention of unicorns dates back to 2697 BC. e. In total, there were at least 6 types of unicorns in Ancient China … The most popular of them was called "tsilin", and symbolized wisdom, justice, honesty, joy, longevity and celebration. He looked different from what most of us paint.
The qilin had the head of a dragon, horns of a deer, and its body was covered with scales and armor. The tail was a lion's, and the hooves of a cow.
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In my opinion, he is still handsome! But he was very gentle! It is so light that it did not sink even into loose snow. He preferred loneliness. And he could walk on water. He ate grain.
The Chinese unicorn combined masculine (qi) and feminine (ling) principles. He was a creature, naturally intelligent. He was shown to people only in exceptional cases. For example, the birth and death of Confucius was marked by the appearance of a unicorn to humans.
According to legend, the unicorn also appeared 5 thousand years ago to the Emperor Fu-hsi, who was sitting on the banks of the Yellow River. As soon as the unicorn touched the muddy water with its hoof, the water in the river immediately became crystal clear. Qilin stopped in front of the emperor, struck his hoof three times on a rock, and spoke to him in a voice like a temple bell.
And when the unicorn turned to leave, Emperor Fu-hsi saw that his back was covered with wonderful mysterious signs. The emperor tried to copy them and this is how, according to legend, the first written language of China appeared.
In Japan, unicorns were called kirin or chi-ling. In Ancient Persia, the unicorn was represented as a three-legged white donkey with six eyes, nine mouths and a golden horn.
The unicorn was a symbol of the beginning of beginnings, righteous strength and purification.
In the 15th century Persian manuscript it is written: "As for its horn, it seems golden, with its help all corruption and vileness will be destroyed and dispelled."
There was a belief that unicorns are land and water.
In Tibet, the unicorn looked like a gazelle or a fallow deer; it lived on mountain peaks and was called "se-ru". He symbolized the bridge between Heaven and Earth, between the world of good and light and the world of evil and darkness.
The pediments of the Himalayan monasteries have always featured two unicorns spinning the wheel of the Dharma.
The unicorn personified the awakening of consciousness, pacification and inspired people to search for wisdom.
In India, the unicorn personified the power of spiritual wealth. He was both a destroyer and a creator at the same time. Found images of Indian unicorns, which are more than 4 thousand years old.
Images of a unicorn have been found by scientists and on ancient Egyptian monuments, as well as on the rocks of southern Africa. They resemble antelope with straight horns drawn in profile. Why they seem one-horned.
For Europeans, starting from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the unicorn has long been seen as a real animal. In ancient Greece, the unicorn was associated with the virgin goddess Artemis.
Julius Caesar, who lived in the 1st century BC, in his "Notes on the Gallic War" wrote about a deer with a long horn that lives in the Black Forest in the Hercynian forest.
Greek historian Ctesias in the 5th century BC BC, after serving 17 years as a doctor at the Persian court, returning to Greece, wrote about wild Indian donkeys, which had a massive body, red head, blue eyes, and one horn on the forehead. Ctesias also said that a person who drinks water or wine from the horn of this donkey will always be healthy.
The story of Ctesias was taken up by Aristotle, mentioning the one-horned "Indian donkeys" as "equids" in his "History of Animals". Pliny the Elder called India and central Africa the birthplace of unicorns. Roman writer Claudius Elian, born around 170 AD e., in the book "Colorful stories" wrote about three varieties of the unicorn.
In Russian alphabet books of the 16th-17th centuries, the unicorn is described as an animal similar to a horse, but with a horn in its forehead. This horn contains all its power, and it is impossible to defeat it. It was also argued that a unicorn can purify even water poisoned by a snake with its horn. Meeting a unicorn most often portends happiness.
All sorts of nonsense about unicorns were added by European merchants who visited the Eastern countries. Marco Polo, having visited Sumatra, wrote that as if the unicorns that actually live there do not at all resemble the ideas of Europeans about them. According to him, the unicorn has the head of a boar and the legs of an elephant, and he loves to wallow in the mud like a pig.
Hieronymus Bosch, in his triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights" around 1500, portrayed the most diverse unicorns that human fantasy can imagine.
Didn't doubt the existence of the unicorn Leonardo da Vinci.
K. G. Jung in his work "Psychology and Alchemy" wrote: "The unicorn is not a single, clearly defined entity, but a fabulous creature with many variations: for example, there are one-horned horses, donkeys, fish, dragons, scarabs, etc. Strictly speaking, we are dealing with the theme of a single horn …"
According to Hebrew legend, the god Yahweh asked Adam to give names to all animals. The unicorn came first. And when God expelled Adam and Eve from paradise, he invited the unicorn to make a choice, either to stay in Eden, or to go to earth. The unicorn chose the latter and was blessed for his compassion for people.
In Christianity, the unicorn also personified the single essence of the Father and the Son, that is, the divine unity of spiritual power and nobility, thus symbolizing Christ.
In the XV-XVI centuries, his image appears on engravings, banners, coats of arms, medallions. He personifies chastity and loyalty, symbolizes the knight's service to the lady.
The belief of people in the miraculous properties of the horn of an outlandish beast in the Middle Ages was used by charlatans of all stripes. They traded in rhino horn and even mammoth and elephant tusks, passing them off as unicorn horn. It was believed that the horn of a unicorn heals from fever, fever, epilepsy, plague, poisoning, and prevents damage. Of course, buying a horn cost a lot of money. So the purchase of a horn for Elizabeth I of England cost the royal house 10 thousand pounds.
The unicorn was the emblem of Elizabeth I as a virgin queen.
Some natural scientists have argued that the unicorn actually descended from real animals. For example, from the once existing one-horned Asian rhinoceros or from some kind of antelope.
Who knows, maybe unicorns exist in some parallel worlds and are the chosen ones … After all, this mysterious animal, personifying the supreme power of Being, reminds everyone of the unity of the beginning and end of human existence. And that it is worth making at least a particle of efforts to overcome world evil and existing contradictions in order to bring the era of love and mercy closer.
The constellation of the Unicorn, introduced in the 16th century, shines in the sky. On celestial atlases, it is depicted as a horse with a horn.
The saint rose, dropping the pieces
Prayers broken about contemplation:
To him was coming escaped from tradition
A whitish beast with eyes like a deer
Stolen and full of longing
In a relaxed balance of legs
Ivory whiteness shimmered
And the white shine, sliding, flowed along the wool, And on an animal forehead, as on a platform,
Shone like a tower in the moonlight, horn
And with each step he straightened in growth.
Mouth with a grayish pink fluff
Slightly backlit with whiteness
Teeth that were becoming sharper
And the nostrils eagerly absorbed the heat, But things did not hold their eyes:
He threw images around
Closing the whole cycle of legends blue.
("Unicorn" by Rainer Maria Rilke).