[
    {
        "id": 211347,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 63,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "39\n\nof the past showed that mo was a grey and white mammal with black limbs, thick hide and short hair. It ate leaves and fruit, was said to be tame, slept by day and roamed about by night. Unfortunately, however, this animal turned out to be a native of Malaya, Java and South America, but was unknown in China. Further investigations found it to be a member of the tapir family, Tapirus indicus, thus not a panda at all.\n\nThe other version of the animal called mo offered more possibilities. A monumental work compiled by Li Shizhen (1518-1593) during the sixteenth century, Studies of Animals, Minerals and Plants, a compendium that was a great deal more than a mere pharmacopoeia, had included all information on the world of nature Li had found in ancient Chinese texts as well as data he had gathered on his own. This work and its contents had been known through the scholarly world in Asia and Europe since its publication. A copy had been brought to Japan and made available to scholars there. Several editions in Japanese were subsequently published. The contents were included in Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza's Historia, which was printed in Rome in 1585. (This work, incidentally, was brought back into China by Portuguese missionaries in a later century). Further, the Historia was translated into English in 1588 as Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdom of China, Part I, Book III, Chapter XII.\n\nEven better for scholars in search of an ancestor of the modern giant panda, the mo in Li's work was a native of Sichuan. It subsisted on a diet of bamboo and plantain.\n\nOnly, alas, its colouring was said to be yellow and black.\n\nOf more comfort, on the other hand, were Erya and the Book of Odes. Both proclaimed the mo to be a \"white and black leopard, resembling a white bear with a small head and large body, which licks plantain plants but eats exclusively bamboo\". Despite several contradictions in this definition, it was possible to think of the mo as the giant panda, with certain reservations, of course.\n\nProblems arose when an illustration in the Synthesis of Books and Illustrations showed the mo to be a rather fantastic being with spotted body, long limbs, wolf's ears and a trunk like an elephant. This version",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211350,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 66,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "42\n\nThe search for the giant panda through Chinese historical records and ancient writings represented an interesting exercise. Nevertheless, no positive statement can be made that the Chinese had known about the giant panda before the pelt was brought to western attention.\n\nPère David, it is safe to say, may continue to bask in glory as the discoverer of the giant panda for the whole world, including China.\n\nbaixiong 白熊 Bishan 璧山\n\nBishi 壁溪\n\nGLOSSARY\n\nErya 爾雅\n\nLi Shizhen 李時珍\n\nLiaodong 遼東\n\nLolo 玀羅\n\nMing 明\n\nmo 貘\n\nOuyang Xiu 歐陽修\n\npixiu 貔貅\n\nSima Qian 司馬遷 Sichuan 四川\n\nShandong 山東 Xuande 宣德 Wuding 武定\n\nYunglo 永樂\n\nYunnan 雲南\n\nZhou 周\n\nzhouyu 州圉\n\nZhu Su 朱橚\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBrightwell, L. R., \"The Giant Panda, Its History in Ancient China and Modern Europe”, Field 187:497-498 (London, 1946)\n\nDavid, Armand, \"Journal d'un Voyage dans le centre de la Chine et dans le Thibet Oriental\", Nouvelle Archives Musée Naturelle de Paris (Bulletins) 10:3-82 (Paris, 1874)\n\nFox, Helen (editor and translator), Abbé David's Diary, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949.\n\nDictionary of Ming Biography 1368-1644, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1976. Essay on Li Shih-chen (1518-1593) by L. Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang, I:859-865.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]