Tora

The tiger is a recurring emblem in the book’s explanations of the line texts: its fixed, intent gaze figures sustained pursuit, while its changing stripes figure decisive transformation carried out by a trusted leader. These images give the animal two related roles—focused effort and authoritative change—without turning it into a character in a narrative episode.

The Tiger’s Gaze and Nourishment

In a line concerning the proper source of nourishment, the subject looks downward for the power to nourish. The commentary likens this attention to a tiger’s unwavering downward glare and connects it with a desire that drives the animal to spring again and again. The image makes vigilance and directed appetite signs of purposeful action: because the subject does not look away from what nourishment requires, the line says he will fall into no error.

The tiger’s force here is controlled by its orientation. Its gaze is downward, its energy fixed on the object of pursuit, and its repeated springing gives the metaphor a rhythm of persistence rather than a single burst of violence. In the same line, the animal’s intensity serves the hexagram’s concern with nourishment, making attention and sustained effort part of the work of obtaining it.

Stripes as an Emblem of Change

In the account of change, the great man produces transformations as the tiger changes its stripes. The comparison presents change as visible and decisive, while the accompanying commentary explains the image through the bright stripes that appear when the tiger changes its coat. This is not change for its own sake: the line places the tiger-image at the position of the hexagram’s lord and describes that figure’s action as beneficial.

The timing of trust distinguishes this transformation. Faith has already been placed in the great man before he divines and proceeds to action. The tiger’s altered coat thus figures a change whose authority is recognized in advance, rather than an untrusted upheaval seeking acceptance after the fact.

Two Uses of Animal Force

The two images emphasize different aspects of the tiger. In the nourishment line, its fixed gaze and repeated springing model concentrated pursuit; in the change line, its altered stripes render transformation legible and authoritative. Both depend on directed force: appetite is not scattered, and change belongs to a leader who already commands confidence.

The tiger’s recurrence therefore links persistence with transformation without making them interchangeable. One image concerns how a subject attends to and pursues nourishment; the other concerns how a trusted great man changes established conditions. In each, the animal makes an abstract principle concrete through a visible pattern of action or appearance.