Karkadann

The Karkadann (English: Rhinoceros, Persian: كرگدن "Lord of the Desert") was a mythical unicorn-like creature said to live on the grassy plains of India, Persia and North Africa. The creature was quite similar to a rhinoceros. Upon its horn was an engraving with the head of a man.

Ibn Battuta in his travelogue, calls the rhinoceros he saw in India karkadann. The karkadann was an extremely ferocious beast, driving away from its territory animals as big as the elephant. It is said it would fight an elephant and kill it. It would then hoist it above its head in triumph using its horn, before going blind as the elephant's fat flowed into its eyes as it melted in the sun.

Name

The name "karkadann" is a variation of the Sanskrit "kartajan", which means "lord of the desert". Other spellings and pronunciations include "karkadan", "kargadan", "karmadan", and "Cartazoon".

Origin

Fossils of a arguably similar animal, the Elasmotherium, have been found in Eastern China and Southern Russia. Although Elasmotherium is thought to have died out in prehistoric times, the Chinese have legends of a similar creature named the "zhi", and the Evenks also talked of a large bull with a single horn in the forehead.

Moreover, Ibn Fadlan reported having seen a creature corresponding closely to both the Kargadan and the "Elasmotherium". It is speculated that "Elasmotherium" survived long enough to be the original source of any or all of the these traditions, although this remains unsupported by the fossil record.

External links

* http://members.tripod.com/~waterdragon/modern.html
* http://www.avians.net/paragon/karkadann.htm