Showcases the diversity and beauty of the animals sharing the tiger's domain and documents the strain that modern and urban values place on India's ecosystems

Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment. Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.

A child imagines that he is in a story where he encounters a tiger at every turn.

These venomous snakes get their name from the tiger stripes on their long bodies. Most common in Australia, tiger snakes live in coastal areas, wetlands, and creeks. Discover more about this snakeÕs habitat, deadly venom, and other unique features.

A profound truth of the wild, and the world at large, is that we are a part of it, not owners of it. Is there any animal we love and hate as much as the Royal Bengal Tiger? Tigers are feared and poached, but they also endure, becoming pin-ups for candlelight marches. Indian elephants are trapped by railway lines and fences, but are reclaiming their bodies and colonizing new areas in central India. And in our dirty cities, the sparkling Plain Tiger Butterfly flourishes as one of our last links to wildlife. Wild animals exist beyond our control. They are harmless, only occasionally dangerous. They live with us, or in spite of us. Those who know them understand that wild animals require acceptance for what they are, not enslavement for what we want them to be. In this book, we meet fifteen iconic Indian species in need of conservation and heart. The author explores what these creatures need, and how they exert agency and decision-making. With an equal emphasis on human and animal, science and skilled prose, Wild and Wilful reveals the magic of the wild in our daily lives. It will take you from fear to wonder.

Acclaimed for its unique ecosystem and Royal Bengal tigers, the mangrove islands that comprise the Sundarbans area of the Bengal delta are the setting for this pioneering anthropological work. The key question that the author explores is: what do tigers mean for the islanders of the Sundarbans? The diverse origins and current occupations of the local population produce different answers to this question – but for all, ‘the tiger question’ is a significant social marker. Far more than through caste, tribe or religion, the Sundarbans islanders articulate their social locations and interactions by reference to the non-human world – the forest and its terrifying protagonist, the man-eating tiger. The book combines rich ethnography on a little-known region with contemporary theoretical insights to provide a new frame of reference to understand social relations in the Indian subcontinent. It will be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, development studies, religion and cultural studies, as well as those working on environment, conservation, the state and issues relating to discrimination and marginality.

From the author of The Soul of an Octopus and bestselling memoir The Good Good Pig, a book that earned Sy Montgomery her status as one of the most celebrated wildlife writers of our time, Spell of the Tiger brings readers to the Sundarbans, a vast tangle of mangrove swamp and tidal delta that lies between India and Bangladesh. It is the only spot on earth where tigers routinely eat people—swimming silently behind small boats at night to drag away fishermen, snatching honey collectors and woodcutters from the forest. But, unlike in other parts of Asia where tigers are rapidly being hunted to extinction, tigers in the Sundarbans are revered. With the skill of a naturalist and the spirit of a mystic, Montgomery reveals the delicate balance of Sundarbans life, explores the mix of worship and fear that offers tigers unique protection there, and unlocks some surprising answers about why people at risk of becoming prey might consider their predator a god.