Tiger, king of the hundred beasts, one of the zodiac signs. Since ancient times, Chinese have been both familiar and unfamiliar with tigers. In the blink of an eye, the Year of the Tiger is approaching, so let's take stock of the tigers in those classics and poems!
We are about to usher in the Year of the Tiger in the Lunar Calendar.
Speaking of tigers, people Chinese and even the world should be both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiarity, because we have too many "tiger elements" around us, one of the zodiac signs, not to mention, from ancient times to the present, all kinds of idioms, poems, fables, legendary tigers are countless.
Humans are strangers to tigers. Tigers are solitary beasts, even if they are kept in captivity, they do not lose the atmosphere of the mountains and forests.
If it is not a breeder and a trainer, there will be no chance of close contact with tigers in a person's life; If there is, it must be a rather exciting experience, even if it is Wu Song.
Speaking of tigers, let's talk about popular science first.
We all know that tigers are a kind of "big cat". Specifically, tigers are tiger species in the genus Leopard in the family Catidae. The feline family is a large family distributed all over the world, including tigers, lions, leopards, cheetahs, lynxes and various small cats.
Judging from the classification and naming of species, the tiger is a bit "aggrieved", as the king of hundreds of beasts, its "section chief" is a soft and cute kitten, and its "genus chief" is also a leopard who bows down in front of it. However, the world of cats is one, maybe the tiger itself does not care.
Although largely different in body size, cats share many similar characteristics: sharp canine teeth that can efficiently catch and bite prey; The eye sockets are large, the field of vision is wide, the vision is sensitive, and the pupils are retractable; The ear chamber is large and sensitive to hearing; The nose is hairless and moist, and the sense of smell is sensitive; There are barbs on the tongue, which can easily "separate flesh and bones" of food, and can also easily clean the fur of the whole body; The beard (tentacles) is stiff and sensitive to the touch, which is convenient for nighttime movement; Feet with meat pads, walking silently; The claws are sharp and most can be retracted; Agile, powerful jumping, good at ambushing prey at short distances...
In short, the word "sensitive" is most appropriately used in felines, which are the most perfectly evolved predators; Tigers, on the other hand, are well-deserved "strongest predators on the surface" of the earth.
Specific to the "tiger", "Ci Hai" is introduced like this: the head is large and round. The body length is more than 1.4 to 2 meters, and the tail length is 1.1 meters. The body is pale yellow or brown with black stripes and black rings on the tail. The forehead has a "king" glyph-like marking. Its natural habitat is forested and mountainous. Nocturnal, able to swim, not good at climbing trees. Sexually fierce. Preys on wild boar, deer, roe deer, antelope, etc., sometimes harming people. It is found in Asia, north to Siberia, Russia, and south to India and Indonesia. China has Siberian tigers and South China tigers, both of which are national first-class protected animals.
Seeing this paragraph, the first thing that attracted me was the four words "big and round head", which made people feel inexplicably happy. Tiger head, indeed both spiritual and cute.
In the past two years, the most famous tiger in China has been "Guandashan No. 1". On April 23, 2021, a fierce tiger appeared in Mishan City, Heilongjiang Province, and the live video of it attacking pedestrians and vehicles was suffocating across the screen, but fortunately no one was killed. After the tiger was captured by anesthesia, it was given a name, "Wandashan No. 1".
Since then, it has been released back into the mountains, and I heard that it is often hanging around. In fact, the Siberian tiger (also known as the Amur tiger and the Siberian tiger) that haunts northeast China often swims across the Sino-Russian boundary river, coming and going as if it were in no man's land.
Compared with ancient times, the tiger's habitat has been greatly reduced. In such a situation, how to live in harmony with wild animals and not harm each other is worth everyone's consideration.
Tigers in the classics
In the oldest batch of Chinese classics, there are already tigers.
--Let's first look at the Classic of Mountains and Seas. This is an early Chinese civilization geography, naturalistic "encyclopedia", many of the contents seem absurd, in fact, are realistic reflections, leaving many traces of ancient human life. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the word "tiger" appears very frequently. For example, the "Western Mountain Classic", which has many descriptions:
"Three hundred miles to the southwest, the mountain of the female bed, its yang is more red copper, its yin is more stone, and its beast is more tiger and leopard rhinoceros"; "Four hundred miles to the west, the mountain of The Yang, its muduoji, the maple, and the Yuzhang, and its beasts, the rhinoceros, the tiger, the calf, and the cattle"; "Two hundred and twenty miles to the north, the Mountain of Lu, its yin and iron, its yang and copper, its beasts more white wolves and white tigers, its birds more white pheasant white Zhai"; "Two hundred and twenty miles to the west, the mountain where birds and rats are in the same cave, and there are many white tigers and white jade on it"...
The Classic of Mountains and Seas records many "half-orcs" or "half-immortals", who are also dressed as tigers.
The Western Mountain Sutra reads: "... Four hundred miles to the southwest, known as the Hill of Kunlun, is the capital under the Emperor of Shiwei, the Divine Land Wusi. Its god-like tiger body and nine tails, human face and tiger claws; Three hundred and fifty miles to the northwest, Yushan Mountain, is the residence of the Queen Mother of the West. The Queen Mother of the West is human-like, leopard-tailed tiger teeth and good at howling, unkempt hair and wearing victory, is the strength of Si Tian and the five remnants."
The Great Desolation of the Western Classic reads: "... South of the West Sea, on the shore of quicksand, after the Red Water, before the Black Water, there are large mountains, known as the Kunlun Hills. There is God, there is a human face and a tiger body, there is a text and a tail, all are white, and they are punished. Below it there is a ring of weak water, and outside of it there is a mountain of fire, and the objects are thrown. There is Dai Sheng, tiger teeth, leopard tail, cave, known as the Queen Mother of the West. This mountain has everything. ”
The protagonists of these two bizarre accounts are the "Queen Mother of the West", who occupies an important position in the Chinese mythological system. The image of the early Queen Mother of the West was not a pearlescent and motherly appearance, but lived in a cave in the Kunlun Mountains in the far and wild west, with tiger teeth, leopard tails, and a crown of colorful bird feathers.
The Queen Mother of the West in the Classic of Mountains and Seas is actually the image of a primitive matriarchal tribal leader. These tribes have a simple worship of beasts, they worship not jackals or bears, but cats and leopards. This truth, I think, is obvious, "appearance is justice", if you choose, it should be the same.
- Let's look at the Book of Verses again. This collection of China's earliest poetry also has many records related to tigers. For example, the poem "Daya Han Yi" describes the fiefdom of the Western Zhou nobleman Han Hou- Liangshan in a very elaborate verse. According to research, this mountain is in the territory of present-day Hebei Province. There is a sentence in the poem: "Kong Le Han Tu, Kawazawa Fu, Bream Fufu, Lu Deer Tuo, Bear and Tsai, Cat and Tiger"
This vividly describes the biodiversity of Liangshan: there are fish in the river and fawns in the mountains; As for the beasts of prey, there are bears, there are bears, there are bobcats, and there are tigers.
As a "Daya" poem, the whole poem of "Han Yi" is relatively crooked, but the sentence "There are cats and tigers" is still a big vernacular today. What is the rationale for this? Many ancient animal and plant nouns—such as the fish depicting the "bream" and "bream"—have not been passed down to this day, or have become strange words, indicating that human attention has shifted.
And "cat" and "tiger" and other terms have been passed down to this day, which shows from one side that cats have always attracted the attention of humans.
——Let's go on to watch "Zhou Yi". Don't mystify Zhou Yi, a work that embodies the naïve philosophical ideas of the early Chinese. In the Zhou Yi Ge Gua, it is recorded that "the adult tiger changes, does not possess the Fu", and "the gentleman leopard changes, and the villain changes the face". What is "adult tiger change"?
The so-called "adult" refers to a big person who controls the overall situation and has a decisive role. They act like tigers, swift and powerful; The changes they lead are like the stripes of a tiger, beautiful and striking. It can be seen that in the minds of the ancients, the tiger was equivalent to the master.
Different from the "adult tiger change", "gentleman" refers to the talented people who assist the "adult", their changes are like the growth of leopards, from the fluffy clump and gray face in the initial period, to the bright color of the coat after growing up, agile and rapid, which is the "gentleman leopard change"; "Villains" mainly refer to ordinary people, who must conform to changes in society and change their hearts and face, which is "villains change their faces".
- Followed by the Chronicle of History. The protagonist of the "Biography of General Li of History" and the "Flying General" Li Guangshan shooting, there is such a bridge section: "Widely hunted, saw the grass in the stone, thought that the tiger shot it, the middle stone did not have a hammer, and the stone was also regarded." Because of the repetition of the shooting, it can not be re-entered into the stone. Guangshou County smells of tigers and tastes self-shooting. And Ju Beiping shot the tiger, the tiger was injured, and Guang yi shot him. ”
The mighty big tiger became a little pity in Li Guang's story. Shooting a tiger is powerful, but the story of "accidentally shooting" a tiger and actually being a stone is even more exciting, so much so that the Tang Dynasty poet Lu Lun used this as a prototype to create the famous "Plugged Song":
The forest dark grass is frightening, and the general leads the bow at night.
Ping Ming looked for white feathers, not in the stone edge.
"The dragon is from the cloud, the tiger is from the wind", General Fei must know this truth, no wonder he is so vigilant and explosive. To tell the truth, if the tiger heard this story, he should also take a breath of cool air and feel very lucky.
The tiger in the parable
After talking about the tiger in the classics, let's talk about the tiger in various ancient fables.
There is a story recorded in the Warring States Strategy Chu Ce:
King Jingxuan asked his courtiers, "I have heard of the fear of the north, how is it true?" The crowd is not right. Jiang Yi said, "The tiger asks for a hundred beasts and eats it, and the fox gets it." The fox said, "The son does not dare to eat me." Heaven and earth have made me grow a hundred beasts, and this son eats me, and it is against the emperor's destiny. The Son thinks that I do not believe, and I am the Son first, and the Son follows me, and he dares not to go away when he sees me by the hundred beasts?' The tiger thought so, so he went with it. The beast sees everything and goes. The tiger did not know that the beast was afraid of itself and walked away, thinking that it was afraid of the fox. The land of the present king is five thousand miles, with a million armor, and the exclusive Zhao Xi; Therefore, the fear of the north is also the fear of Zhao Xi, in fact, the fear of the king's armor soldiers, and the fear of the tiger of the hundred beasts. ”
This is the origin of the "Fox Fake Tiger Wei" story. Moreover, this is a "story set story" routine: the king of Chu asked the courtiers, are the northern countries very afraid of our general Zhao Xi? Minister Jiang Yi used the story of "Fox Fake Tiger Wei" to explain that they were not afraid of Zhao Xi, but afraid of you!
This is really a wonderful "rainbow fart", and at the same time, it silently "stomps" on the political enemy. In this story, the tiger gives people a feeling of cuteness, the fox is also the appearance of ice and snow, and the hundred beasts are in unison, and there is a sense of "crazy animal city".
Let's look at another story:
Donkey of Qian
Tang Liu Zongyuan
There are no donkeys, and there are ships of good deeds to enter. Then there is no use, put it down the mountain. The tiger saw it, and the behemoth also thought it was a god, and it peeked into the forest. A little closer, a little more, not knowing.
He day, donkey roar, tiger frightened, far away; I think and devour myself, and I am afraid. Those who look back and forth and feel that there is no special ability; Learn its voice, and close to the front and back, finally dare not fight. A little closer, yi fox, swing rushing. The donkey is angry, hooves. Tiger Inxi, Ji Zhizhi said: "Stop this ear!" For he jumped on his great psalm, cut off his throat, and did his flesh, but went.
belch! The shape of the pang is also like virtue, and the sound of the macro is also like the ability. Although the tiger is fierce, it is suspicious and afraid, and the pawn does not dare to take it. If it is now, sad man!
"Tiger Row" in le fu poem
The Lefu Poetry Collection is a collection of ancient Chinese Lefu poetry. There is a special category in the poetry collection, which is called "Tiger Row". Through these poems, we can glimpse different aspects of the tiger.
Tiger Row
North and South Dynasty Xie Huilian
The tiger dives deep into the mountains and roars in its own wind.
People say that guests are happy, and guests are sad.
Xie Huilian was a native of the Southern Dynasty and lived mainly during the Liu Song Dynasty. He was born into the Xie family and was a close friend of the famous poet Xie Lingyun.
Although this song "Tiger Walks" is short, it vividly portrays the nature of the tiger: "The tiger dives deep into the mountains and roars in its own wind." A tiger is a tiger, what is a man?" People say that the guest is happy, the guest is sad", people on the journey, hard work needless to say, life safety is difficult to guarantee, all kinds of tigers and snakes are infested, just ask you are afraid or not?
During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was social unrest. I think that Xie Huilian wrote "Tiger Row" and also has worries about fate, right?
Let's look at the "Tiger Line" in Tang poetry:
Tang Chu Guangxi
Cold does not worry about snow, hunger does not eat people.
The blood of man is not willing, and the evil wounds of the gods.
TaiMuro is my house, and Mengmen is my neighbor.
The hundred beasts eat for me, and the five dragons serve me.
Mengma is a he wei, and fu jiang is also benevolent.
CaiZhang shines in the morning, and the claws are majestic.
The high clouds floated one by one, and the thick ground vibrated with the sound.
Junneng Jia Yu Yong, day and night long blind date.
Of all the poems depicting the tiger, this is the most festive and atmospheric one, which is very much in line with the atmosphere of welcoming the Year of the Tiger. The author Chu Guangxi was a Poet of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, and he praised the tiger so much that he simply wrote it as the embodiment of "benevolence":
"Cold does not worry about snow, and hunger does not eat people." The blood of man is not willing, and the evil wounds of the gods. "Tigers are physically strong, not only are they not afraid of ice and snow, but they like to sprinkle some wild in the snow."
The ancients believed that the tiger easily did not hurt or eat people, because it understood that man was the primate of all things and did not dare to offend the gods. Since you don't eat people, what do you eat?" The hundred beasts for my meal, the five dragons for my guests", it turns out that the hundred beasts in the mountains are its recipes, and the five dragons in the sky are its friends. The tiger knows it well about the control of the food chain and social relations.
The tiger's work and rest and travel are also permeated with the atmosphere of a king who is open and relaxed. "Taimu is my house, Mengmen is my neighbor", Taimuro and Mengmen are very famous mountains, and only such a big mountain is worthy of the majesty of the king of the mountain. "The color of the chapter shines in the morning, the teeth and claws are majestic", the golden fur shines under the morning sun, and the fangs and claws are the sharp weapons of its dominance.
"Monma is a hewei, and the floating river is also a benevolent." This verse contains an allusion. "Montma", also known as "montage", means flying and stumbling. Tigers are usually like this, and no one pays attention to them. However, what attitude the tiger adopts, it is also necessary to "watch people get off the plate".
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Kun served as the Taishou of Hongnong County, generous and loving to the people, legend has it, even the tigers in the territory were enlightened, carrying the little tiger across the river, which is the origin of "floating river is also benevolent".
It is said that Chu Guangxi wanted to exhort the officials at that time through this poem: the greater the ability, the greater the responsibility; The more powerful you are, the more you need to be benevolent. Even tigers can do this, but what reason can humans not do it?
In the next song "Tiger Row", we see another image of the tiger:
Tang Zhang
The trees of the north mountain of the South Mountain are silent, and the tigers walk around the forest in the daytime.
Xiang Wan's body was a Taoist food, and the elk in the mountains were silent.
Every year the adopted son is in the deep valley, and the male and female are not separated.
There is a mountain village near the cave in the valley, and the chief takes the yellow calf from the village.
The five young people did not dare to shoot, and came to the forest to see the traces.
"The trees of the north mountain of the South Mountain are silent, and the tiger is walking around the forest in the daytime", this is a tiger that swings wildly and runs rampant in the township. For such a big tiger, the reaction of all parties is very interesting: "Xiang Wan's body is a taoist food, and the elk in the mountains are silent", see you scare the elk, and don't dare to make a sound at all; "Wuling young people do not dare to shoot, empty to the forest to see the tracks", "Wuling teenagers" are mostly the children of the giants, usually with a big tone and a wild road, but when they encounter a real big tiger, they can only shrink their heads and shrink their heads and shake a shot.
Although the tiger is a fierce tiger, the terrible nature is terrible, but the tiger does not make people feel hateful and hateful, and still has a lively side: "Every year the adopted son is in the deep valley, and the male and female are not separated from each other." Like all living beings, they lick deeply.
Humans have also found that, except during the period of estrus, male and female tigers are alone and live independently and wonderfully.
In fact, in many ancient poems, even if the tiger appears as a "supporting role", it always gives people a sense of surprise. We can read several poems by Li Bai.
In "Sleepwalking in Heaven and Leaving Behind," the scene of the Heavenly Palace is as follows: "The tiger drums and the birds return to the car, and the immortals are lined up like hemp." Have you ever seen a big tiger playing the piano and drums? Too cute, too fairy. In "Shu Dao Difficulty," the danger of Sword Pavilion Pass is as follows: "Avoid fierce tigers, avoid long snakes, grind teeth and suck blood, and kill people like hemp." It's too scary, too scary.
Finally, look at "Lu County Yao Ancestral Hall Sent Zhang Fourteen to Hebei", "The fierce tiger is lying on the grass, although it is difficult to hide." Like Zhang Gongzi, dirty in the wind and dust", Li Bai compared his friend Zhang Fourteen to a fierce tiger, even if he was reckless, he could not hide his tall and mighty.
In fact, in the coming Year of the Tiger, we should also be like this, no matter the good times and adversities, we must always have a spirit, always like a tiger descending the mountain, doing things like a tiger to add wings, tigers and tigers are mighty!
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