Lions

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It would be hard to find a more symbolic and universally recognizable animal than the lion. From the hallways of royal palaces of the past to the pop culture of today, the lion is the undisputed king. But why?

WHAT IS A LION?

Lions (Panthera leo) are members of the cat family and they’re unique. They are the only felines to exhibit sexual dimorphism—meaning that males and females don’t look the same. Moreover, they are the only cat species that naturally forms social groups, called prides. The male lions may seem to be the dominant individuals of a pride, but it is the lionesses who actually do the work of maintaining it: they hunt, they inherit the territory, they raise the cubs. The only tasks of the male lions are to defend the pride’s territory and to father cubs. (Perhaps the royalty trope isn’t so far-fetched after all!)

LIONS THROUGH THE CENTURIES

Prehistoric Lions

The human fascination with lions is an ancient one. The big felines feature in some of the earliest examples of human art. Chauvet Cave in France contains images of more than 70 lifelike lions, painted over 30,000 years ago. These exquisitely detailed portraits depict lions acting in natural, realistic ways: they are hunting, snarling, rubbing up against one another—you can almost hear them purring and roaring through the ages. Although we can’t be sure why these wonderful paintings were created, it seems clear, from the time and resources that evidently went into making these images, that these must have been culturally significant animals. This visual record also gives us additional facts: that there were lions in what is now France 30,000 years ago, and that prehistoric cave lions showed no sexual dimorphism, so males and females appear the same.

Wikimedia Commons

Herakles and the Nemean Lion, obverse. 540 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Herakles and the Nemean Lion, reverse. 540 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lions and Kings

The lion is often called the “king of beasts” or the “king of the jungle,” making him a suitable symbol of royalty, an emblem of power and nobility as well as of benevolence and compassion. Sometimes physical parts of a lion—mane or tail or claws—were worked into royal regalia; in other cases, the whole lion was emblazoned on noble insignia. On the royal arms of the United Kingdom, indeed, there are eight lions, not counting the large “dexter supporter”; lions appear more frequently on European coats of arms than any other animal.

Coat of Arms. The United Kingdom.

In the literary traditions of Europe and Asia, particularly the fable tradition, the lion figure always represents a king. Royal titles and names often reference lions, and for thousands of years lions were given as diplomatic gifts from one king to another. Live lions were displayed in the courts of Europe, Byzantium, and by the Seljuks and the Safavids.

As early as the eighth century BCE, the Assyrians were breeding captive lions for royal hunts: the king killing the lion was a metaphor for his strength and right to rule. An incomparable series of tablets from the North Palace of Nineveh of a lion hunt, depicts the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal II as the ultimate “action hero.” He valiantly slays the mighty beast on foot, on horseback, or from the back of a chariot using a variety of weapons, all the while demonstrating his virility and power to the gods and to his subjects.

The British Museum

The British Museum

The British Museum

Lions and Religion

As well as potent images in terms of heroes and kings, lions also play a prominent role in many religious traditions from the ancient to the modern world. The fertility goddesses Ishtar and Cybele are connected to lions. Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of war and healing, can take on a leonine form.  In Hindi mythology, lions helped the gods battle demons and other forces of evil.  This can be seen in this wonderful image of the Hindu Goddess Durga who has a lion as her vahanam or divine mount.

Wikimedia Commons

Lions hold an important place in Islamic traditions as symbols of bravery, strength and valor, and there are many references to lions in the Hadiths. In Judaism, the lion represents the messianic promise, and Buddhism has its own lion connection: the teachings of Siddhartha were called the “Lion's Roar,” and bodhisattvas are sometimes depicted seated on a lion to signify their wisdom and their connection to the Buddha.

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara of the Lion's Roar. Late 15th-early 17th century. China. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. copy

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE LION? 

Of all of the species we've discussed in this series of blogs over the past months, the lion seems to be the most universally admired, playing a prominent role in many cultural traditions. Although this is wonderful for figurative or metaphorical lions, it hasn't done much to help real ones. At least one of the several lion subspecies is now extinct; two are critically endangered. Population estimates for African lions range from 16,500 to 30,000, and they are considered a vulnerable species. Asiatic lions once ranged from Greece to the Indian subcontinent, but now fewer than 700 of them survive on a reserve in western India.

Nonetheless, the future may not be all doom and gloom for these big felines: numbers, in India at least, are slowly climbing, giving hope that lions will not find themselves relegated to history books. This past June, 2020, The Times of India reported a “roaring success” in the breeding program for Asiatic lions living in Gujarat’s Gir forests with a population increase of 29% over the past five years—something for conservationists, indeed for all of us, to cheer about. As apex and keystone predators, and in human imagination and myth, lions still have a very real role to play in our world.

‒ Dr. Carolyn Willekes

Asiatic lion family at Gir forest near Junagadh city, Gujarat state, India