A Bao A Qu is a legendary Malay creature described in Jorge Luis Borges's 1967 Book of Imaginary Beings.
Borges claimed to have found it either in an introduction to the Arabian Nights by Richard Francis Burton, or in the book On Malay Witchcraft (1937) by C.C.
[2] The writer Antares conjectures that Borges's tale might be inspired by Orang Asli myth, and that "A Bao A Qu" is a slurring of abang aku meaning "my elder brother".
[3] In Borges's story, the A Bao A Qu lives on the steps of the Tower of Victory in Chitor, from the top of which one can see "the loveliest landscape in the world".
Only once in its everlasting life has the A Bao A Qu reached its destination at the top of the tower.