Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Wolverine]

There was an overlap of the areals of the 2 cats in India since ancient times and probably this overlap increased in Modern era with the of extermination of the lions (already was mentioned why to exterminate lion is easier than tiger). British colonisers cant tell us what precisely was exactly the original areal of the lion since when British come in India the golden age of Indian lion was already passed, British only finished the destruction of this animal, which started mush earlier before their arrival. In order to understand what was original areal we need to study the old Indian chronicles and manuscripts.

But here lie a big problem - Indians were always a society of philosophers, thinkers and mystiques but not society of observers, in ancient India is hard to find any precise historical data or precise geographical descriptions, at least not at degree typical for the Europeans and Chinese. Some information about lions for sure could be found in the Mughal chronicles (Mughals were a Turk dynasty who ruled India from 16th to 18th century and build Taj Mahal). But the best sources of information about lions @Rishi I suspect could be found in the books of the European travelers and ambassadors in the Mughal court - Portuguese, Dutch, French and British. Those guys traveled vastly in medieval India, observed and registered everything they sow. If you have time to dig in the libraries I could give you the names of this travelers - probably half a dozen. For example François Bernier:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Bernier

Citate from the book "The Mughal world" of Abraham Eraly, page 72 about lion:

"Lion was the exclusive prey of the emperor and the princes. Great care was taken to ensure the success of the emperors lion hunt, for a lion kill was considered a good omen, its escape unlucky. The care taken in fact was such that at times the hunt was like a ritual killing. On locating a lion for the emperor, gamekeers would attach it firmly to the spot by regularly tying an ass there for it to feed on. It could also be (as Bernier had heard, but denied by officers) that  the ass provided for the lion on the day before the hunt was loaded with opium, to make the lion torpid and prevent it from wandering away. To further impound the lion, on the day of the hunt, beaters encircled the area around its lair with high nets.

The emperor arrived for the hunt mounted on an elephant, accompanied by the Grand master of the Hunt and several amirs, all mounted on elephants, along with soldierson horseback and gamekeepers on foot armed with half-pikes. Despite all these precautions, sometimes the lion attacked the hunters, or escaped by leaping over encircling net and had to be pursued and hunted down. A successful hunt was celebrated with high ceremony - the carcass of the lion was brought to the emperor sitting on the throne surrounded by amirs…"


We today think India as a land of the tiger but as we can see the animal symbol of the emperial power in old India was the lion, not the tiger, even on todays Indian Emblem are painted the lions of Ashoka. 

Mughal empire's flag:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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