IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Kurup, G.U. | |
| The treasured tiger | |
| 1989 Book Chapter | |
The most magnificent of all the cats, the tiger, down the ages, had been an object of awe, reverence, and fear. A symbol of power, benign or malign, the embodiment of magnificence of malevolence, tiger was deified and worshiped as in India or considered devil incarnate as in early China. In recorded history, tigers are known as early as 2500 B.C. from the Indus Valley civilization of Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Tiger seals obtained from there, depicted man riding tigers. Tiger became an integral part of the "Durga" cult developed later in India. But in early China, the tiger was considered, on the contrary, to be malevolent. "Yin", the evil aspect of the universal energising and regulating force, the "tao", was represented by the white tiger in Chinese belief. If the taoist ancestral grave is controlled by yin, the white tiger, no good can come to the descendants. But later, conversion to Budhism reverse the malevolent view about tiger in China to one of reverence and as a symbol of the glory and grandeaur of Budhist faith. Tiger and bamboo became an oft repeated theme of Budhist paintings from eighth century with various allegorical meanings. In the west, Siberian tiger depicted with long hairs was a well known motif in the Sythian art of fourth-fifth centuries B.C. The Europeans were introduced to the tiger in Greece during third century B.C. through the gift of a live tiger by Selukas - 1, Alexander's Governor in Punjab. Romans saw their first tiger during the reign of Augustus. Indicentaly, the word tiger is derived from a Gree word meaning arrow. Just as the Greeks called their fastest flowing river "Tigris", they called the fastest running animal they ever saw as the tiger. |
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