![]() The two creatures convey the ancient Chinese concept of yin and yang, whereby all things-male and female, calm and movement, shade and sunshine, moon and sun-are defined and complemented by their opposites. The flying dragon and prowling tiger also came to represent heaven and earth. ![]() Their symbolic pairing was believed to bring about the blessings of rain and peace. As the dragon and tiger govern the elemental forces of wind and rain, they were revered as rulers of the cosmos and the natural world. The tiger turns its head as if sensing the turbulent weather to come. “Dragons bring the clouds,” according to an old Chinese proverb, while “tigers call forth the wind.” In these scrolls, the wind seems to swirl through a crouching tiger’s bamboo grove and into the clouds, revealing a dragon. Even today, the Japanese term for midday is shōgo (literally, “proper horse”), and morning and afternoon are gozen (before the horse) and gogo (“after the horse”). Above this mythical creature, the animals are named in a rhyme that honors what lies at the heart of a good harvest: “the farmer who rises in the hour of the tiger, before dawn, and works in the fields through the hour of the horse, noon.”ĭuring the Edo period (1603–1868) the zodiac animals were used to divide the day into twelve sections, such as the midnight rat or the noon horse. This print was meant to protect the home, with a sacred beast displaying characteristics of all twelve animals: the rat’s face, the ox’s horns, the rooster’s crest, the rabbit’s ears, the horse’s mane, the goat’s beard, the dog’s torso with the tiger’s skin, the monkey’s legs, the boar’s and snake’s tails, all enveloped in the flames of the dragon. The zodiac animals promise good luck, and images of them can serve as prayers for good harvests and prosperity.
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