I am NOT a Qilin/Kirin expert, so until I accumulate the knowledge, I’ll feature some pictures attesting to how old and how ubiquitous the quilin/kirin is.
Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1993) lists several anecdotes about the qilin, or “Chinese unicorn” heralding the birth of Confucius and offering warnings to Genghis Khan (95). He provides a neat bifurcation of East/West unicorn traditions, quoting Borges, that “In the East, peace and tranquility; in the West, aggression and lust. Nonetheless, the unicorn remains an imaginary animal, an invention that can embody any value one wishes to project” (97).
Cool!
Offbeat Unicorn 