Origin of the tiger
GENETICISTS, HISTORIANS AND EXPERTS HAVE SEVERAL THEORIES ON THE BIG CAT
IT IS impossible to tell when tigers walked into India. “We can, however, suggest when the habitats in India were appropriate for tigers, or when they diverged and became distinct from other tiger populations,” says Uma Ramakrishnan, molecular ecologist and assistant professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru.
No scholar can give an exact date for this, says Mahesh Rangarajan, professor of history and environmental studies at Ashoka University at Sonipat. They will just give the accidentally surviving evidences that have accumulated over time, he says, adding, “If you see the references in author Shibani Bose’s latest work Mega Mammals in Ancient India: Rhinos, Tigers, and Elephants, the tiger was very much here in the historic times, say 5,000 years ago.” Records show a long association of the tiger with humans, he says.
In her book, Bose uses “an archive comprising archaeology, a gamut of literary texts as well as visual depictions” to etch out histories of rhinos, elephants and tigers in ancient India. “The tiger has scant presence in the fossil record, but figures in the archaeological record at Mesolithic Mahadaha, Neolithic Loebanr III and Aligrama in Swat, at Atranjikhera and at Madar Dih,” her book notes.
Despite scant evidence as far as
fossils are concerned, tigers abound in literary and pictorial representations of ancient India.
India’s ‘tiger man’ Valmik Thapar writes in his 2002 book
“The earliest depictions of the tiger on the Indian subcontinent go back to Harappan seals dating back to 2500 BC. Sometimes the tiger is horned and is seen standing with a trough-like object in front of him. On another seal is an intriguing figure, the hind portion of which is that of a tiger and the front portion that of a woman; the woman has a conspicuous long plait and a tree growing above her head. Another seal depicts a nude female, upside down with thighs held wide apart, with two tigers standing on one side. The ritual significance is not clear but evidently, it evokes a feminine connection of the tiger with either fertility or birth.”
THE CHINESE ROUTE
In the recent past, experts have attempted to put tentative dates for the arrival of the tiger in the subcontinent. “Studies based on models of habitats and climate suggest tigers occupied most of India around 12,000 years ago,” says Ramakrishnan, citing
by Andrew C Kitchener and Andrew J Dugmore.
“Previous studies indicate tigers might have evolved near the south China region and dispersed from there,” says Ramakrishnan. Large cats, including tigers, evolved from a common ancestor, probably similar to the modernday leopard or the jaguar five million years ago, Thapar writes in his book.
“Our studies based on genome sequencing suggest that Indian tigers diverged from other tigers
relatively recently, around 8,0009,000 years ago,” says Ramakrishnan.
A question that arises is, if tigers evolved in southern China, which route did they take to enter South Asia? Here, Ramakrishnan offers a tantalising clue. “Our models of demographic history of tigers using whole genome sequences suggest northeast Indian tigers are (a) closest to southeast Asian tigers, and (b) the most divergent of populations within Indian tigers. Together, these results indicate that tigers may have entered India through northeast India,” she says.
Divyabhanusinh Chavda, author of two highly-acclaimed books on India’s lions and cheetahs, echoes Ramakrishnan’s views. “You are finding tigers at very high altitudes in Nepal and Bhutan. It is quite possible that the tiger may have crossed over from the Himalayas, somewhere in the Arunachal and upper Assam area,” he says.
(DTE) in its article ‘Roars in lost land’ (March 16-31, 2019) had reported how tigers emerged in the snow-clad Eastern Himalayas of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim in 2017 and 2018. questioned whether the tigers sighted always lived there or were migrants in search of a better habitat.
But after the tiger came to India, how did it colonise the country’s entire landmass? Thapar does not give a time or the route, but writes in
“The tiger quickly spread throughout India, moving into the mangrove swamps, evergreen forests, dry deciduous forests, and the variety of other vegetation that covered Indian land.”
Ramakrishnan offers more cues: “Demographic simulations using whole genome sequences potentially suggest that the northeast Indian tigers are the most distinct. There are other populations of tiger in India, like central Indian tigers, Western Ghats tigers and south Indian tigers, but they diverged from each other around the same tiger.”
So what can be deduced is that tigers moved to India roughly 12,000 years ago, possibly through the Eastern Himalayas. However, this wisdom can change. “This whole business of evolution is in a flux. Everyday, something new pops up,” says Chavda.