In the existing ancient literature, there is no clear record of the Chinese lion, and scholars have almost unanimously determined that the lion came from the western region.
The Tang Dynasty monk Huilin said: "Fox is a lion, out of the Western Regions", the Ming Dynasty scientist Li Shizhen also said: "The lions came out of the Western Regions", and the late Qing Dynasty scholar Wenting-style argumented: "Foxes are lions, not Chinese beasts". If there had been three generations ago, then poetry and books would have referred not only to rhinoceros but to lions alone.
Book III of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty has the earliest record of lion literature: Emperor Zhang of Han and the first year (87 AD), the Yue clan kingdom dedicated lions; In the second year (88 AD), the resting kingdom offered lions. Subsequent tributes were recorded in successive dynasties until the seventeenth year of the Qing Kangxi Dynasty (1678 AD), when the Portuguese envoy Benedict paid tribute to the African lion.
Yueh-chih was in the area of present-day Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The Arsacid state is in the area of present-day Iran
In ancient times, from India to Persia, the lion was painted with a strong mythological color and became a symbol of divine power and royal power; The tribute lion is an extremely heavy gift for these ancient countries. Since Zhang Qian passed through the Western Regions, "special foreign objects, coming from all sides"; The countries of the Western Regions are thousands of kilometers away from the capital of China, and there is a desert barrier, the lions have a huge amount of food and must be packed into cages to trek, and the tribute group has to work hard to transport the lions to China.
This very small lion tribute can only be seen in the Emperor's "Shanglin Garden", which is not visible to ordinary people. Craftsmen at the bottom of society can only subjectively imagine on the basis of "listening" and synthesize the characteristics of animals such as cats and tigers to create the "lion" in their minds. After the continuous artistic processing of successive generations of craftsmen, the image of the "Chinese lion" in the Tang Dynasty has been basically fixed, and the shape of the "Chinese lion" and the African lion has since been very different.
Lions in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534) Dunhuang Grottoes murals.
Dunhuang is closer to the western region, and the painter may have seen a real lion, and the shape painted is closer to that of the African lion.
Emperor Gaozong of Tang (628 - 683), a lion sitting in Wu Zetian's mausoleum,
It is very similar to the later "Chinese lion".
Lugou Bridge is located on the Yongding River in Fengtai District, about 15 kilometers southwest of Beijing. It was built in the 29th year of Jin Dading (1189) and rebuilt in the ninth year of the Ming Dynasty (1444). Destroyed by floods during the Qing Kangxi Dynasty, it was rebuilt in the 37th year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1698). There are 140 pillars on each side of the bridge, and there are 501 large and small stone lions carved on the pillar heads, and the image of "Chinese lion" has been fixed and self-styled