It has been said by some, that originally the lion was on the Chinese zodiac. Most of the zodiacs have stories about how the various animals came to be represented. In the past, I have told you about the mouse and cat and why the mouse is the first animal in the zodiac and the cat is not even on it. There is also a story about why the Tiger is on the zodiac and I would like to share this story with you.
Originally the lion as the king of the beasts, was on the zodiac. However, the King of heaven (some stories say it was Buddha) didn’t like such a cruel and heartless animal to be the King of the beasts and representative on the zodiac. My assumption is the King of heaven had never seen Disney’s Lion King. Some of you may be thinking, “The Lion King” wasn’t out until 1994!” However, if there is a King of heaven don’t you think he could manipulate time and space. Maybe it was the Buddha, since a true Buddha can see past, present and future. So let’s just assume the King of heaven or Buddha, had not heard about the wonderful Simba. If he had, we might not have this story. I guess this King had only known lions like “Scar” from the movie and never knew about “Simba”. As a result, his solution was to make the tiger; the King of beasts and put him on the zodiac.
However, at that time, a very long time ago, the Tiger was not much of a fighter. As I have explained in an earlier story, the mouse had tricked the cat and the cat was not on the zodiac. Yet the cat was a magnificent animal that really should have been on the calendar. The cat was graceful, sleek, self-sufficient and a very good fighter. The cat was always mad at having been tricked by the mouse and roamed around, mad at the world. Having seen his cousin the cat fight, tiger, decided she could learn from her cousin the cat. But that’s another story. After the Tiger learned her lessons from the cat. The King of heaven called upon the tiger to go down to Earth and challenge the three strongest animals on Earth: the Lion, the Bear and the Horse. The Tiger immediately took up the challenge and called out all three. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say, Tiger defeated all three and as a reward, the King of Heaven, gave the tiger three large stripes across her forehead. The Tiger loved those stripes and roared with pride. However, the King of heaven still wasn’t sure about the tiger. Just as he was wrong about the Lion, he didn’t want to make a similar mistake.
However, after many years, the world was attacked by a magical turtle, who wanted to flood the Earth. This part had always surprised me, I thought turtles were kind and gentle creatures, except for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (But they had been dosed by radiation). Never the less, just as within us human beings, there are good turtles and bad turtles. Turtles live to tremendous age, so in their age, most become kind and humble. Surprisingly, turtles aren’t so different from we humans. I’m sure you all know of some old people that never learn from their age. They just become mean and nasty old men and women. This was the case with this magical turtle. In all her years, this turtle had very few friends and even her family didn’t really like her. Once again, the King of heaven called the Tiger to take care of the problem with this turtle. Although this is another story, as you can imagine, Tiger defeated the turtle and saved the world. As a reward, the King of heaven decided to put Tiger into the calendar and make him king of the jungle. In recognition of this tremendous occasion, he gave Tiger another stripe. To this day, you can see these three horizontal stripes with one stripe going through them (王) on the forehead of tigers. This is the Chinese character for King. I guess the King of heaven didn’t realize this tiger was she and put the character for King on her forehead. So if you look carefully at tigers to this day, most of them are still marked with this character. This Tiger should be “Queen of the Jungle.”
I know that I have often explained that Buddhists don’t believe in superstitions and such. However, these zodiac and stories are really about aspirations for each of us to be better humans. There are characteristics for people born in the various zodiac years. Tiger people are said to be vigorous and ambitious, daring and courageous, enthusiastic and generous, self-confident with a sense of justice and a commitment to help others for the greater good. Whether or not you are born in this year of the tiger, I would say these are all characteristics to aspire towards. And whatever you may be a grouchy or kind old man, woman or child. Amida Buddha embraces you all. I wish for each of you a Happy New Year! Namo Amida Butsu!
~ Rev. J.K. Hirano