Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist
Kings across East Asia, whether it’s China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia consider the lion as the symbol of kings. In front of Chinese Palaces, there is the male and female lion, the male holding under his paw a globe representing the world while the female holds a lion cub under her paws. What is interesting is that lions do not exist in East Asia — they never have. And yet, the lion is an important and integral part of East Asian visual culture. The city of Singapore means the city of the lion, but there were never any lions in the region of Singapore. The same applies to Sri Lanka whose national symbol is the lion. Their king came from India and he was the son of a lion. This could mean the spread of the Narasimha cult that once thrived on the eastern coast of India in Kalinga and Andhra.
