TIMES CHANGE, AND SO DO PERCEPTIONS. The references made to the panda in Chinese sources dating from the first millennium BC describe a very different beast from the panda that we know today – and an altogether less cuddly one. The first reference we find to the animal comes in the Historical Record of Sima Qian, a scholar of the Han Dynasty, who was writing during the first century BC. He describes the panda as having even more strength and ferocity than the tiger or leopard. Indomitable in war, it was an obvious emblem of the emperor’s might.
PANDA PARADOX
Yet its ferocity was only half of the panda that the ancients saw. Like us, they were very much taken by the animal’s air of quiet introspection, even if they didn’t see its placid nature as evidence of docility or warmth, but as stoic dignity. What we imagine to be gentleness was instead regarded as something akin to the supreme warrior’s outward calmness.
There was more to the ancient Chinese view of the giant panda than that, though. More open, perhaps, than we are to multiplicities of meaning, and also to paradoxes, the ancient Chinese considered the panda to be a symbol of both war-like power and peace. With its huge bulk, its mighty strength, its impressive claws and its giant jaws, this bear – this carnivore – they reasoned, was well endowed with all that it needed to create murderous mayhem. Instead, however, it had opted to lead a quiet, pastoral existence as a grazing creature.
As such, it was a fitting symbol of a just and modest model ruler who has the strength to wage war, yet prefers to pursue the path of peace. This symbolic meaning gave rise to the Chinese tradition of a flag bearing the figure of a panda being raised whenever a battling army wished to call a truce. The panda stood for peace without the stigma of surrender.
IN BLACK AND WHITE
Panda skulls unearthed by archaeologists excavating the Chinese imperial tombs of the second century BC support the suggestion that these beasts were held in reverence, although exactly what sort of ceremonial or symbolic role they served is far from clear. Were they interred in the graves as treasured trophies from this life, or as talismanic guardians for the next one? Or did they fulfil some other function that we can’t even begin to guess at?
Chronicles also record captive pandas in the Chinese emperor’s collection. This was something like a private zoo, but seems unlikely to have been a place of research, as is its modern equivalent; more probably, pandas were kept as living good-luck charms, and as evidence of the ruler’s wealth and power. This explanation seems to be the logic behind the gifts of pandas made to foreign rulers, such as the pair of living pandas that scribes of the Japanese Emperor Temmu record as being received in ad 658 from China’s Empress Wu Zetian. Along with these diplomatic offerings, she also sent some seventy panda skins.
The panda’s pelt, with its bold, black-and-white patterning, is an irresistible aspect of its appeal for us, as it was for the ancient Chinese. They read a mystical significance into those markings, seeing them as suggesting the interlocking colours of yin and yang, and thus all of the conflicting forces of the universe brought into harmony within a single form.
A good omen for the ancients, and talismanic to this day, the panda was the perfect mascot for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Above: The panda featured in a number of ancient Chinese texts under different names: it was described as a tapir, for example, or as a ‘white’, ‘striped’ or ‘bamboo’ bear.
Above, left: In the Shan Hai Jing (the Collection of Mountains and Seas, c.200 bc), the giant panda’s huge jaws earned it the description ‘iron-eating bear’.
Above, centre: In the Book of History, written around the start of the first millennium BC, the panda is seen as possessing overwhelming ferocity and a tiger’s strength.
Above, right: The Book of Changes (c.1000 BC) confirms the panda’s status as a symbol of power and imperial prestige. Its pelt was once offered to great rulers as a tribute.
Despite its starkly striking colouring, the panda is surprisingly inconspicuous on a snowy hillside, as well as against darkly silhouetted branches and the white sky of winter.
For us an engagingly anthropomorphic feature, the panda’s black-and-white patches appealed rather more to the ancient Chinese as an emblem of the complementary principles of yin and yang.
This panda doesn’t exactly blend in among the hillside’s green, red and tawny autumnal colours, but its patterning does break up the outline of its body.
Matteo Ricci’s ‘Map of All Countries’ (1584) revealed the extent – and the limitations – of Western knowledge of the world. The map shown here, with annotations by Chinese scholars, was published in 1602.
The Italian missionary Matteo Ricci arrived in China in 1582 and quickly came to respect the people, their traditions and their culture.
Despite his tireless missionary endeavours, Père Armand David was less successful in spreading his Christian message than in raising awareness of Chinese wildlife in Europe.