 William
Blake's (1757-1827) poem: The
Tyger with explanatory notes.
Indian Mythology
The tiger is the vehicle of, and sacred to, the Hindu goddess, Durga. From
a certain perspective she is India's Mother Nature, for she is the deification of Energy. Her consort, Shiva,
sometimes evoked as Shambo, wears a tiger skin
to indicate that he is beyond the bounds of the natural world.
He came by this vestment in a myth that recounts how the consorts of
forest-dwelling sages were so taken with his physical beauty as he wandered naked through
the jungle that they considered abandoning their husbands. The men felt
they had to eliminate him at whatever cost, so they dug a great pit into which
they conjured, by means of mantric magic, a great and ferocious
tiger. The Great God easily slew the beast making of its skin a
loincloth.
In his most ancient form, Lord Shiva was known as Rudra, the
Howler, and the Yajur Veda describes him as clothed in a tiger skin.
Thus a tiger pelt was
once the typical
mat (Skt. asana) of the meditating yogin up until the mid-20th
century. Now we are more
conscientious and would never contribute to the rapid
disappearance from the world of this impressive solitary animal.
 Instead
of an actual tiger skin, today a rug depicting the animal is sometimes
used as a seat/mat for doing tantric practices. These are
available in 3 main designs from various Tibetan and Nepali companies. One
is a stylized pelt, another has a "happy tiger" motif -- the animal or
a pair in the a
forest; the third kind is just an abstract striped field.
Tiger as Protector
The tiger is one of four animals associated with the Kagyu lineages of
Tibetan Buddhism. Bodhisattva Vajrapani wears the skin of a tiger
and sworn dharma protectors such as Mahakala
follow in this tradition that combines yogic symbolism with the Buddhist association of the tiger to compassion and
generosity.
From a material perspective the bodhisattva vow (to forego one's own
enlightenment until others can also achieve it) can be expressed by the donation
of the body for the purposes of furthering the Buddha's Dharma. In legend,
literature and art, there appears a motif in which someone makes
a gift of
his/her body to an animal, often a tiger, that evokes the Buddha's gift of
Dharma. This can be underlined by having the "same" individual -- either
an ascetic or a wayward monk -- receive both gifts. Although the parallel is not
explicit, Reiko Ohnuma ("The Gift of the Body and the Gift of Dharma," History of
Religions, 37:4 (1998) 323-59) demonstrates there is an implicit identification between the Buddha's gift and
the offering of the body. The Mahamudra Chod [pron.:
cheu] is a practice that uses this offering in a powerful way.
Karmic Connections
Khenpo Karthar, in
Dharma Paths
(Snow Lion, 1992/2006):
It was not possible to hear the teaching of the Buddha without having a
past karmic connection with him. Accordingly, when the Buddha gave the
teaching on the four noble truths, in the assembly receiving the teachings
were five human beings and 80,000 beings of the god realm. If we go back to
the previous lives of the Buddha, we can explain the karmic connections these
beings had with him. In one of his previous lives, the Buddha was born
as the youngest of three princes. When he was only five years old, the
three princes were in a forest playing together at hide-and-seek and other
games. As they were walking in the forest, they came to a cave where
they saw a wounded female tiger with five cubs. The mother tiger was very weak
and was unable to provide food for the baby tigers. The Buddha's older
brothers went to search for some food, and they asked the young prince to stay
near the cave to take care of the mother tiger and the five cubs.
While the Buddha was taking care of the wounded tiger and her five cubs, he
began to think that it was not proper to kill other beings and give their
flesh to the tiger. He found some large thorns and pressed them into neck, and
as the blood came out, he let the cubs and their mother suck the blood.
In fact, he gave his whole body to the five cubs and their mother as an act of
generosity. As he did this, the Buddha prayed, "Right now I am only able to
give temporary help to these starving beings, just removing their hunger. May
these tigers who are enjoying my flesh, blood, and bones be reborn to a higher
realm, and may I be able to teach them and lead them out of cyclic existence."
As a result of this karmic connection, the five cubs were reborn in the human
realm where they attended that first teaching of the Buddha in the form of his
first and only human students. They attained the level of arhat.
(The others were 80,000 inhabitants of the god realm and they became first-level
bodhisattvas.)
Generosity
The second tale in the Tibetan collection
The Sutra of the Wise and the
Foolish (mdo mdzangs blun) tells how the Buddha, at the
behest of a distraught mother, saves two young thieves from execution by accepting them into the monastic
community.
When Ananda expresses amazement, Buddha replies, "Not only have I benefited these three, the mother and her sons, at this time alone; I also benefited them at a previous time as
well." He tells how the prince Mahasattva encountered a
tigress so weak with starvation that she is contemplating devouring her newly born cubs.
The man slits his throat with a piece of wood and lets her drink his blood.
Finally, he lets her devour him completely which saves the lives of
all of the tigers. Following the usual Jataka pattern, at the end of the story,
the Buddha reveals that he himself was that prince while the two youths he
had just saved from execution were none other than the two tiger cubs -- the mother, of course, was the starving tigress.
"Formerly," he concludes, "a long time ago, I freed them from difficulty, saved their lives, and made them happy. And now, having attained complete
Buddhahood, I have again freed them from difficulty and completely liberated them from the great suffering of
samsara."
Namo Buddha is the name of the
site in Nepal, where legend says the Buddha performed this supremely
compassionate act of generosity. It
is
known to Tibetans as Tag-mo Lu-jin.
Bhadra of the Buddhist scriptures was a cousin of the Buddha and one of his great disciples.
He is described as a good preacher able to explain the dharma in clear, simple language.
Often depicted holding a book, he is also the arhat in images of the
16 who is accompanied by a tiger which he soothes or restrains.
Samantabhadra [All-good] Buddha is also associated
with the tiger.
Dharmata, the upasaka (Tib: gen nyen dhar ma
ta)
or Dharmatala is one of the attendants often appearing in images of the
16 arhats. He is usually shown seated, often in a chair, in the company of a tiger.
Other Tibetan Buddhist Deities
Vyaghramukha
[< bottom left, zoom in] or, Tiger-Faced Dakini, appears in the entourage
of Lion-face Dakini. See vyaghra, below.
The Blacksmith, avowed protector of the Nyingmapa, Damchen Garwa'i Nagpo, holds a hammer
in his right, and outstretched in his left hand, a tigerskin bellows for his
fire.
One of the 5 Long-life Sisters
converted by Padmasambhava is Mikyo Losangma [top
right of prev. link] (Immovable Noble
Mind) whose mount is a large young tiger. She is yellow and offers food with
her right hand and a full golden bowl with her left.
Tiger-rider
The Dombi Heruka, one of the 84 great tantric masters (a.k.a.
Dompipa) had been a king of Maghada (9th century Bengal) when he
decided to take up tantrism full-time, particularly the practice of Hevajra.
He took a tribal or gypsy girl as his consort and vanished into the jungle with
her for 12 years.
Rumours of his scandalous life sent his former ministers after him, but when
they saw the consort walking on lotus pads, they were discouraged from
approaching. A further 12 years later, people went to fetch him again, and this
time the embracing couple emerged from the forest waving a snake as a whip
seated on a pregnant tigress.
The end of the legend is found in #4 at Keith Dowman's site about the new
edition of Masters
of Enlightenment.
A similar story is told of Padmasambhava, according to
A. M. Butters (The Ancient History of Taktsang):
Manifesting as the wrathful Dorje Drolö, in year 747 of the Common
Era, Padmasambhava (also known as Guru Rinpoche, revered
throughout the Himalayas as "the second Buddha") came from Tibet to
Bhutan on the back of a flying tigress (believed to have been
his consort's magical form.) In the west of the country, in the north of Paro Valley, in a cave on the face of a 4000 ft. cliff, he stayed and
meditated in order to subjugate demonic forces that were oppressing the
country and even threatening the life of the king. This place was called
Taktsang.
Taktsang, which is above Paro in Bhutan, is only one of 13
"tiger's nests" (Tib. sTag-tshang) or sites where
Guru Rinpoche is believed to have revealed tantric teachings; here most
notably, the cycle of Vajrakila (indestructible dagger.)
- Senasepa
riding his tiger. The tiger is a particularly apt symbol for
wisdom and for the Vajrayana itself -- it can get you there, but could also eat
you along the way.
From the 9th to the 12th centuries
,the Cholas were a powerful dynasty
that ruled over half of India, from Thanjavur in
Tamil Nadu [South India.]. Their empire also extended south to Sri Lanka and as far
east as Indonesia. The Sri Lankan Tamil separatists call themselves Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam
(LTTE) not only after the animal's reputation for ferocity and fearlessness, but
in their identification with the Cholas, whose dynastic emblem was the
tiger.
China promotes several places as the Shangri-la of
Hilton's political novel,
Lost Horizon. One of the
candidates is Zhongdian in northwest Yunnan.
Getting there requires a 5-hour bus ride from Lijiang that climbs through
the Hengduan mountains and cuts across a great river system that rushes down from
the Tibetan plateau. It winds through dramatic forests and isolated
villages, at one point passing a place where the banks of the Yangtze narrow.
This legendary spot is called Tiger Leaping Gorge after an animal that
successfully managed to escape its pursuers by leaping across the river.
Chinese Tiger Symbolism
In Chinese iconography, tigers are used to stand for the cardinal
directions:
White Tiger represents the earth, the West and so, the afterlife.
Blue Tiger represents the East, fertility and vegetation.
Red Tiger represents the South and fire.
Black Tiger represents the North and winter.
Yellow Tiger represents the sun at the centre.
Among the Chinese 12 symbols of sovereignty, there is a pair of bronze
sacrificial cups. They stand for filial piety towards father and mother;
one features a tiger to symbolize strength and the other, a
monkey for cleverness.
Among the 12
animals of the Chinese calendar, the tiger is not only noted for strength but
also for courage and perseverance.
Chinese deities riding tigers include Chang Tao-ling, the
Taoist Immortal who is also the god of wealth and hence, of gamblers. The goddess of the wind
also has a tiger as her mount.
The constellation Westerners know as Orion is seen as only part of the constellation known to Chinese as the White Tiger.
Miao Shan
Miao-shan, the daughter
of a Chinese ruler, rose to heaven on a tiger at the time of her
martyrdom. She was reborn as Kwan-yin, so they say. Is it this smiling tiger that is believed to care for the welfare of
children and so, is embroidered on children's clothing? Her story is told in Alice Getty's
The Gods of Northern Buddhism:
In the eleventh year of the Epoch of the Heaven of Gold, 2587 B.C.[E.], there lived a king called Miao
Tohoang. He had three
daughters and no sons, so when they were old enough to marry he found them suitable husbands that he might have an heir to
the throne.
But Miao-shan, the youngest, refused to marry, saying that she preferred to pass her life in seclusion in order to
perfect herself in meditation, and thus arrive at the state of Buddhahood.
She retired to the monastery of the White Sparrows in order to live in perfect seclusion. The king attempted to persuade her to return, but every kindly overture failed. He then
resorted to cruelty, each trial being more horrible than the last, but she came out unscathed from them all.
{In one incident, he is said to have set fire to the convent.]
Then he ordered her beheaded. But during the execution there sprung up suddenly a great wind storm, the heavens were obscured, and a great
light surrounded Miao-shan.
Then the local protective deity took the form of a tiger, bounded out of the forest, and carried her
inanimate form into the mountains.
She then found herself in hell, visiting Yama, the lord of Hell, and by her magic power she liberated the souls damned there.
Upon her return, Buddha appeared to her on a cloud. He counseled her to retire to the island of P'u-t'o some three thousand
miles away, and to give herself up to meditation.
Some versions of the story say she was again carried away by a deity in the form of a tiger, while others say she was carried over the water on a
lotus.
For nine years she remained on the island practicing meditation and performing acts of merit, after which she was raised to the rank of Buddha and took her first acolyte, Hoan
Shen-ts'ai (he who prays in order that he may have virtue and talent).
Later, she acquired another acolyte. The third son of a Dragon King of the Sea was wandering upon the waves one day in the
form of a fish. All at once he found himself entangled in a fisherman's net and then offered for sale in the market.
Miao-shan, whose eyes see all things, discovered the danger and sent Shen-ts'ai in human form to buy the fish and set it free. The Dragon
King was much touched by her kindness, and sent her, by his granddaughter Lung-nü, a pearl that gave light in the dark, so
that she might read the sutras at night.
Lung-nü was so entranced with Miao-shan that she conceived the idea of herself
acquiring Buddhahood, and asked to remain with her as her second acolyte, to which Miao-shan readily consented. Miao-shan
later converted her parents to Buddhism and became a "Savior of humankind," able to remove all obstacles to their attaining
Amitabha's paradise.
She herself, however, refused to enter it as long as any human being was excluded.
Judgment by Tiger
In Thailand not so long ago, when several people were suspected of the same serious offense, they were all thrown into
a tiger pit. The first one killed by the tiger was considered the
guilty party.
In Japan
In Japan, the tiger is said to live a thousand years and was one of the emblems of the
samurai, perhaps because of the story which follows:
A gosho of the Nichiren tradition
In a letter to a samurai patron in 1278, Daishonin gave this example of the
power of confidence in the Teachings:
"The mother of the mighty warrior General Li Kuang was devoured by a ferocious tiger. He spied the beast and shot it with an
arrow, but then discovered that what he had seen was only a rock. The arrow lodged itself deep in the rock. He was surprised
and tried to duplicate his feat but could not penetrate the stone a second time. Later he came to be known as
General Stone Tiger. "
Mysterious Tiger
In Malaysia and Indonesia, there are also tales about were-tigers, perhaps because
the actual Sumatran tiger -- now almost extinct -- is so mysterious.
However, tales are also told of the friendly tiger.
The Skin
of the Tiger King a Mongolian were-tiger tale.
The Bluebeard motif
appears in the Indian tale of a
Brahmin girl who married a tiger.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell:
" If you're raised
as a tiger, do you have to live like one?"
Other Folklore
The Tibetan version of the
race between un-equals is told of a
tiger and a frog.
Vietnamese
tale about a
boy and the tiger's child.
Biology, Ecology and Natural History
Panthera tigris is the largest of all the cats. It reaches
lengths of 13 ft. (4 m) - tail included, and can weigh 650 lb (290 kg), much larger than any lion. According
to Project Tiger,
there used to be 8 varieties of tiger; four have "gone extinct" --
one just recently -- in 2000, there were five.
The eight tiger subspecies that once were: The heavily furred Siberian or
Amur tiger,
the South China tiger, the Indo-Chinese tiger, the broad-faced Sumatran and the
Royal Bengal. Differences relate to size, habitat and
range.
Albinos tigers are well-known, especially since they have been bred in
cpativity. They have also been bred with lions due to genetic
similarities. However, unlike the lion, they are solitary and perhaps it is this characteristic
that makes of the tiger a symbol of chastity. Unlike their cousin the lion,
they enjoy
bathing in water and generally hunt at night.
The wide range of a male permits it access to a few females who give birth to two or three
cubs for which they care for two years.
In 2000, there were estimated to be only about 5,000-7,000 wild tigers
left in Asia. Found in a variety of habitats, even in Himalayan valleys at
a height of 3,000 meters, tiger require sufficient vegetation for camouflage,
ready access to
water and a population of ungulates to serve as prey.
In 2003 in Nepal, according to Nepal
News, the Bengals found there preyed primarily on deer and wild cattle.
Although they are the strongest
of the cat species, an old or "renegade" animal will occasionally
take domestic cattle or become a man-eater.
A tiger chudders when it encounters its den mates. Your domestic
cats can be encouraged to imitate that greeting, if you make a high gurgling as
you meet them.
- Details of tigers' paws
'n claws.
- The Sundarbans:
the mangrove swamp preserve in Bengal, where "Tigers have been known to swim out to larger boats and leap aboard.
People on board may begin to call out, "Ma," –- or mother, a word meant to hail the goddess, Bonobibi. Legend has it that the echoes of someone’s screams at facing a tiger are eaten by the tiger. No one hears the scream as the tiger takes its prey."
- Documentary "Broken Tail's Last Journey," shown Oct. 2009 on
The Nature of Things with David Suzuki (CBC tv) states there are fewer than 1,400 tigers left in India.
- http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2009/brokentail/
Survey Says? 0 Wild Tigers by 2015
Dec. 18/05, London's Sunday Telegraph, "Survey raises fears
India's Bengal tigers may be wiped out in 10 years":
A new survey of India's tiger population has established there are many fewer
of the animals than previously believed, prompting fears that increased poaching
could lead to their extinction within a decade.
The Wildlife Trust of India has revealed there are few or no tigers left in
at least six of the country's main reserves. According to official statistics,
Namdapha in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh had 61 tigers in 2002,
but the trust assesses that there is only one animal left now.
In Buxa in West Bengal, where 32 Indian tigers, also known as Royal Bengal
tigers, were reported in 1997, none is thought to remain.
The disturbing new figures come a month before a planned national survey of
tigers in India. "This is an extremely worrying development," said Ashok Kumar
of the Wildlife Trust of India. "We're afraid that the poachers will now move on
to the other, better-known reserves where tigers are still doing well."
Unless the current rate of decline is reversed, the country's tiger
population, 3,500 officially but perhaps as low as 1,500, could be wiped out
by 2015.
"There's very little chance of saving the tiger now," said Belinda Wright,
the British director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. "It's got to
the stage where it's beyond a crisis and the Indian government is in complete
denial about what's going on. We've lost the battle."
The current wave of poaching is being driven by the escalating demand for
tiger skins in Tibet. The skins are much sought-after as fashionable additions
to traditional garments worn to weddings, horse festivals and at New Year.
The Wildlife Trust of India is pressing for the establishment of a wildlife
crime bureau and for the government to hold talks about the illegal trade with
the Chinese authorities.
"It's a huge criminal racket," said Kumar. "A villager can earn as much
in one night from poisoning and skinning a tiger as he could earn from farming
in five years. Eventually, that skin can sell for up to $6,000 US in Lhasa."
Other reserves from which tigers have disappeared include Dampha in the
eastern state of Mizoram, Sariska in the western state of Rajasthan and in
Indravati in the central state of Chhattisgarh.
"There's only one lonely tigress left in Palamau," said Kumar, referring to
the reserve in the central state of Jharkhand. "It's very sad. She can be
heard calling out for a mate, but there's no response."
Conservationists are particularly critical of the failure of India's wildlife
authorities to bolster its forestry service. There has been little or no
recruitment of forestry staff in more than 20 years and no training in a decade.
The aging guards are no longer equipped to deter highly motivated,
well-organized bands of armed poachers.
The majority of tigers living outside the reserves, up to half of the total
tiger population, have already been destroyed.
Death Comes to the King
There will soon be no more tigers.
One reason is the fact that, in Chinese mythology, the tiger is the King of Beasts.
". . . all Tigers bear the Chinese character for king in the stripes on their brow. This looks like an "H" turned on its side with an
extra line through the middle. . . . . [they] imbue the Tiger with all sorts of fantastical magical powers, particularly in the realm of
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Tiger parts are said to cure everything from toothaches to hemorrhoids. Many Kung Fu
liniments, such as Dit Da Jow, used tiger bone in their original recipes. While some short-sighted people rigidly adhere to such
"traditional" recipes, modern healers agree that this is preposterous.
One of the intrinsic beauties of TCM is the it is highly
flexible and adaptable. There are plenty of herbal alternatives to the use of endangered species, and respectable healers use
these cures and honor the law. [Martial arts actor Jackie Chan heads a
campaign] by the Global Survival Network (GSN)."
~
Gene Ching, martial arts instructor
However, we can no longer blame solely the Chinese for the dwindling
tiger population.
Sept. 24. 2005, The Telegraph, "Tibetan trimmings ring tiger
knell: Fashion stokes demand for skin:
The Indian tiger is heading rapidly towards extinction, thanks to a new
breed of wealthy Tibetans who prize the skins as trimming for their
traditional costumes, an investigation has shown.
Until recently it was tiger bone used in Chinese medicine that was thought
to be driving the escalating poaching trade, but it is now clear that Tibetan
fashions are stoking demand to unparalleled and unsustainable levels.
This year alarm bells sounded in India when it emerged that one of the
country's most prestigious reserves, Sariska in Rajasthan, had been completely
emptied of tigers by poachers.
Hearing rumours that the new Tibetan trend for skins was behind the rapid
increase in poaching, a team from the London-based Environmental Investigation
Agency went to Tibet and the Sichuan and Gansu provinces in China.
What they found surpassed even their worst nightmares.
In New Delhi on Thursday, Belinda Wright, of the Wildlife Protection
Society of India, who was part of the undercover team, said the time for
scaremongering was over.
"This is it. The end is now in sight for the Indian tiger. The sheer
quantities of skins for sale are beyond belief. As the Sariska scandal so
clearly showed, the Indian tiger is now being systematically wiped out."
At horse festivals in Tibet and Sichuan, dancers, riders and spectators
wandered about, openly wearing the traditional chuba, generously trimmed with
tiger and leopard skin, while organisers and local officials joined in.
Traders said the demand for the skins was coming from the newly-moneyed
classes who had made small fortunes from selling a local caterpillar fungus
used in Chinese medicine. Demand for the fungus has rocketed since two
Chinese Olympic athletes attributed their success to its stamina-building
powers. A rare mushroom is also fetching high prices.
The skins are smuggled along well-established Nepali trading routes into
Tibet where they are sold openly in shops in capital Lhasa. Using hidden
cameras, Wright, who has devoted 35 years to saving the Indian tiger, toured
the centre of old Lhasa posing as a buyer.
She said: "In 10 shops, we found 24 tiger skin chubas, most of them
decorated with great swathes of skin, and all openly displayed for sale. "In
20 other shops, we recorded 54 leopard skin chubas. The dealers categorically
told us that they had come from India. When we asked, we were shown three
fresh tiger skins and seven fresh leopard skins in four different locations -
again, all from India."
Wildlife experts accuse the Indian and Chinese governments of seriously
underestimating the scale of the problem and, through a mixture of corruption
and bureaucratic inertia, failing to address it.
Perhaps most depressing was the apparent lack of concern among Tibetans
wearing these chubas.
In Sichuan's Litang, Wright talked to a 21-year-old as he sat in his tent,
swathed in a fresh tiger skin that had cost his father about £6,700. "He said
that he would wear it just twice a year -- during the Tibetan New Year and at
the annual horse festival -- even though he said he didn't particularly like
it.
"I asked him how wearing a dead animal's skin could be compatible with his
Buddhist religion, but he had no explanation, except to say 'I didn't kill the
tiger'," she said.
The Circle of Life: Mr. Caterpillar Wins Mrs. Tiger
Sept. 24, 2005, India's The Daily Telegraph, Outlook,
"Can't Hide The Stripes," by Pramila N. Phatarphekar: " The Indian tiger
gets a macabre afterlife in Tibet":
Got Money, Take Tiger is the new India-Tibet equation. This gruesome
give-and-take was exposed this week at a screening in Delhi with film clips of
the macabre afterlife of tigers. Not in India, but in Tibet. Where the
bustling bazaars of Tibet have tiger and leopard skins piled in tall shaky
stacks, strung up on clotheslines and peddled by salesmen, some of them
Buddhist monks. This even as the Dalai Lama, sheltering in India, beseeches
followers to recall Buddha's mahakaruna.
India's tigers becoming Asia's fashion victims was reported by Outlook ("Thy
Fearful Cemetery," May 9). Fresh evidence points at the rise in tiger skin
sales with the sale of Tibetan chubas adorned with tiger, leopard and otter
skins. This year's horse festival in Nagchu had chuba-wearers walking in a
parade of animal skins. The footage came from a joint probe by the
International Environmental Investigation Agency, EIA, and the Wildlife
Protection Society of India, WPSI, from July to September 2005. Belinda
Wright, executive director, WPSI, who maintains a meticulous wildlife crime
database, states: "The trade is in Tibetan hands, they smuggle, sell, buy and
wear skins."
In Litang, 21-year-old Pentsok, just back from India, got a priceless tiger
skin as a graduation gift. Asked if his outfit clashed with his Buddhist
beliefs, his defence was: "But I didn't kill it."
In Linxia, China, a single street had 90 stores stuffed with striped and
spotted skins ready for sale, while huge stockpiles of tiger skin waited to be
tanned. Wright, who posed as a buyer with EIA's Debbie Banks as her niece,
says all the salesmen said tiger and leopard skin supplies came from India.
Another 10-minute film, with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), shows a
Tibetan sport festival where everyone, from the presiding officials to the
tug-of-war team, was wearing animal robes. At a horse festival, men danced in
skin skirts decorated with glass beads that filled the eye-sockets of tiger
faces. The women swayed in tiger and leopard skin skirts, fitted with otter
skin borders. At least 18 otter skins went into making the border for one
skirt. "We have pictures of Boudha, a Tibetan colony in Kathmandu, where you
see the same skin chubas," says Ashok Kumar, vice-chairman, WTI.
Yet, with most Tibetans admitting that their forefathers didn't own skin
chubas, where is the money coming from? This newfound prosperity comes from
the sales of a magic mushroom, cordyceps sinensis, which grows on caterpillars
and is found in the Himalayas. Considered an elixir of life, caterpillar
fungus, cooked in a duck's stomach, was served to Ming emperors. Chinese
athletes used it as a performance enhancer. Today, it's a much-vaunted
Oriental potion, selling at US $1,000 per kilo. But who will bell this illegal
tiger trade before the 2008 Olympics in China?
With a richer Tibet and China buying, India is wilfully supplying. Trader
Sansar Chand's son's diary of 2003 reveals records of sales worth Rs 1.38
crore, with tallies of 654 leopard and 40 tigers skins. The poachers are
moving south. Says Kumar: "Traders want quality skins from south India." Adds
another expert: "The skinning, especially the fat removal, is an experts'
job." Will the government seize the final opportunity to act? Tiger Task Force
member Valmik Thapar warns: "We have five more Sariskas in the making, I've
written to the PM, saying we can't find a pugmark. For riots we send rapid
action forces, to save the tiger we do nothing."
Our crisis solutions are incoherent. Rubbishing the task force's
coexistence formula, senior wildlife biologist Raghunandan Chundawat says:
"It's impossible for a large carnivore like a tiger to coexist with humans. In
Delhi, people can't even live with monkeys." With addled thinking and
the relentless decimation of the jungles, our tiger species seems condemned to
life-after-death in China and Tibet.
_____________________________________________________________________
four animals: Tiger, snow lion,
garuda, vulture.
Vyaghra: Sanskrit word for tiger;
thus, Viagra -- clever
choice of name for a medication to aid in "erectile
dysfunction." Perhaps the availability of this drug will deter men
from encouraging the traffic in tiger parts that comprise traditional
Asian treatments for what was formerly known as "impotence."
Little Black Sambo is a children's classic written in 1899 by Helen Bannerman
where a boy cleverly gets the better of a tiger by getting it to chase its tail
until it melts into butter.
It is often
taken to be a racist tale, but should rather be understood as a version of an
Indian folktale
about
Lord Shiva, commonly saluted as Shambo. Here is a link to the 1994
revised
Little
Black Sambo.
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