Chapter 47 king of beasts
Among all animals, the most feared by the ancients was the tiger.The huge cats are the biggest threat to mountain dwellers.
In China's oldest writing system invented by the Yin people, the character for "tiger" consists of big eyes wide open and a big mouth with fangs.In the dictionary compiled by Xu Shen, he explained the word "tiger" in modern Chinese characters, saying that this character imitates the pattern on the tiger's body.The most famous scholar in the Han Dynasty told posterity through his writings that in the Han Dynasty, people called the tiger "the king of mountain beasts", which means that all mammals living in seclusion in the mountains bow down to the tiger and present their bodies to the tiger. them for food.
According to the traditional animal classification, Kirin is the ruler of all terrestrial mammals, and it manages more than 300 kinds of beasts.Tiger's monarchy obviously conflicts with this traditional view.Another scholar, Guo Pu, tried to reconcile this contradiction when commenting.He believes that Qilin's character is too kind and weak to effectively manage the beastly world where the weak prey on the strong. Therefore, the "Emperor", the creator of all things, crowns the tiger and uses the violence of his minions to regulate life in the jungle.
Tiger's status as a monarch has the meaning of overtaking the unicorn and coming from behind, and it is not easy for all beasts to surrender.In order for the tiger to better exercise its management power, the "Emperor" endowed the tiger with many divinity and privileges.For example, the tiger is the only animal that understands hexagrams.Before setting off to prey, they will draw divination on the ground and calculate the ideal hunting direction.Sometimes, the tiger will go out to patrol at night.In the dark forest, their left eyes turned into lamps, emitting light outwards, while the right eyes used the light to search the territory.Occasionally, the hunter came across a tiger patrolling at night, and shot an arrow, disturbing the tiger king, and the light fell to the ground and dissipated.The next day, I went to dig in situ again, and I could see the white stone called "amber" three to five feet into the ground.
The power of the tiger even affected the heaven.As an animal that symbolizes the West, coldness and depression, the tiger only roars in the beginning of autumn, and only after the roar of the tiger can the cold season come to the world.In the middle of winter, tigers begin to mate.As long as there are tigers mating in the world, the moon in the sky will give birth to colorful halos.
Sometimes, tigers can even change and attack humans. "He Tu Kuo Di Xiang" stated that a tribe called "Li" among the Baiyue people was transformed from a group of tigers, so they always like to harass the surrounding ethnic groups.Song Jun, a scholar of the Southern Dynasties, believed that the ancient holy king Zhuanxu had three unworthy sons who turned into tigers and harmed others.The slang people may be the descendants of Zhuanxu's unfilial son.