The Tiger
Ba Jin

I have never been to the depths of remote mountains to see a lively fierce tiger, but I have heard quite a few stories about it.

Of all animals, I like the tiger best. And of all the stories about it, the following is my favorite:

There was deep in a mountain an ancient temple where several pious Buddhist monks lived a monotonous life. They had for company only a number of tigers apart from a few country folks who occasionally came up the mountain for visit. Instead of harassing the monks, the tigers voluntarily stood guard at the gate of the temple. As a reward for it, the monks would place some edibles in front of the gate for tigers to eat. Towards evening, when the setting sun had dyed half of the sky red, the tigers would come up to the gate in groups to eat their fill and then left skipping and jumping. The monks usually left the gate wide open while peacefully engaged in their daily routine of chanting Buddhist scripture inside the temple. Normally none of them came out to watch the tigers eat. Sometimes, however, one or two monks did appear standing at the gate, but the tigers would remain unalarmed and, taking the monks for their friends, did nothing to harm them. They just kept on eating unhurriedly until they finished and left. Sometimes, when they found no monks at the gate, they would whisk away like the wind after uttering several thunderous roars.
It’s a pity that I’m unable to go to the mountain to make friends with the fierce tigers. I can only see the lovely animal in my dreams once in a while. As to the tiger we see in a zoo, it is nothing but a wretched tame animal confined to a cage.

Nevertheless, it is improper to call such a tiger “tame animal” because caged as it is, the roar it raises on waking up from a nap is still such as to make monkeys tremble with terror. One can visualize in the caged animal the power of the erstwhile king of beasts. Set it free, and it will go right back to the remote mountains to lord it over the forest again.

Thirty-one years ago, I remember, when my father was magistrate of Guangyuan County a local hunter suddenly visited him one evening to present him with a dead tiger. He told my father nervously that he had killed the king of beasts by mistake for he had been to the mountains exclusively to hunt wolves, foxes, jackals and dogs. He added that he had by no means killed the tiger on purpose, that he was afraid that the mighty tiger would retaliate against him for his serious offence and that since the dead animal could not be revised, he had brought it as a gift to my father the magistrate in order to have his own crime mitigated. My father accepted it and gave him some money in return. The dead tiger lay in the yamen for a day until it was skinned and dismembered. From then on, my father had a new acquisition in his room—namely, the tiger-skin chair cushion, and people often came to our home to ask for some tiger-bone powder, with which they were to make a medicinal drink by steeping it in liquor.

Later, when my family moved back to Chengdu, we brought the tiger’s skull with us. Sometimes I would gaze at the skull on the table until it blurred before my eyes and conjured up in me visions of a live tiger’s head. But we always had it locked up in a cupboard. My father would not have it taken out to have part of it ground into powder unless when someone who needed it as medicine came to ask for it. Consequently the whole tiger skull was given away in the form of powder.

Things that happened some thirty years ago are apt to be forgotten. But even to this day I still remember the appearance of the tiger’s skull and apprehension in the hunter’s face while he addressed my father. I should say that his facial expression boiled down to this: he looked as if he had blasphemed the gods. And I would also like to add in passing that while he was talking to my father he didn’t’ even dare to take a glance at the dead tiger. He would turn pale the moment his eye accidentally fell on it.

A fierce animal like the tiger, which continues to inspire us with reverent awe even after death, really deserves our warm love.