{"id":66,"date":"2019-06-13T01:27:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T05:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/?p=66"},"modified":"2019-06-13T01:54:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T05:54:41","slug":"the-crocodile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/2019\/06\/13\/the-crocodile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Crocodile"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Crocodile<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Thursday, June 6<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-67 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/files\/2019\/06\/Picture1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"504\" height=\"675\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When I saw this, I have to admit that the last possibility running through my head was that this is a crocodile.\u00a0 I think Molly described our impressions best, as a \u201clion dragon tiger elephant thing.\u201d \u00a0As it turns out, the monks completely agree that it looks nothing like a crocodile, but it does have a very interesting meaning and story behind it.\u00a0 The following is my understanding from a conversation with one monk about the statue.<\/p>\n<p>In the landlocked Tibet, he tells me, the crocodile and all aquatic life are symbols of <em>naga<\/em>, or wealth.\u00a0 This is a desirable sort of wealth as the monk explained to me, rather than a negative worldly distraction from the studies and practices of a monk.<\/p>\n<p>This representation of a crocodile originally came from a Chinese design which made its way into Tibet.\u00a0 In families of artists, sons copied the designs of their fathers, iteration after iteration \u2013 none of them ever seeing a crocodile, of course.\u00a0 After hundreds of years and changes with each iteration, the monk tells me the result is \u201cnot even a little bit like a crocodile.\u201d\u00a0 I had to agree and we had a good laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Crocodile Thursday, June 6 When I saw this, I have to admit that the last possibility running through my head was that this is a crocodile.\u00a0 I think Molly described our impressions best, as a \u201clion dragon tiger elephant &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/2019\/06\/13\/the-crocodile\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99431,186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alistairs-post","category-information"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/encompassindia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}