Talk:White Tiger (mythology)
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Removed associations
[edit]I have removed the association with Yin and the element Air. I have never heard of such things. Yin and Yang are considered above and parallel to the five elements, and not represented by any of the four guardians. The element Air mentioned here, I can only imagine, means the concept of four elements in Buddhism, which is a rather conceptual notion mentioned mostly in scholarly debate and does not employ icons such as the four guardians. Uly 12:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Move to White Tiger of the West
[edit]How about moving this to White Tiger of the West from White Tiger (Chinese constellation)? That name doesn't require disambiguation, and this thing isn't just a constellation, and isn't just Chinese. Kappa 17:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
- I don't see a problem with how it's disambiguated right now. And the constellation does originate from China. The article discusses that it was used by Japanese and Koreans as well. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Requested move 22 October 2019
[edit]- The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: No consensus. This does not rule out a new discussion on a specific proposal. My own thought is that White Tiger (Chinese mythology) could be the best. If you use Four Symbols as a parenthetical disambiguator then what about the other symbols that don't have that? Like Vermilion Bird? EdJohnston (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
White Tiger (China) → White Tiger of the West – Per WP:NATURAL. The current disambiguation is overly vague and confusing. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 05:25, 22 October 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:42, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- Oppose per the Four Symbols page, which indicates that although the four, including the White Tiger, represent constellations which represent the four directions, the direction isn't included in the common name. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- Oppose but would support move to any of White Tiger (mythology), White Tiger (Chinese mythology), or White Tiger (Four Symbols) in that I agree the current disambiguation is suboptimal. "of the West" isn't really frequent in what I've seen, and it's part of non-Chinese cultures mythology as well which makes a bare "China" odd (and not clear it's referring to the legendary creature, not actual Bengal tigers in China). SnowFire (talk) 22:30, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: Since the article is disambiguated China, what about Bai Hu, aka the Chinese name? That would definitely fulfill WP:NATURAL.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 13:14, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
- I think "White Tiger" + parentheses is fine, since there's the JP & KR language names of importance for this as well. (Also, this is very minor, but there's some consistency with the other Symbols being at English translations - e.g. Vermilion Bird rather than Zhu Que.) SnowFire (talk) 19:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Follow-up
[edit]@Zxcvbnm, EdJohnston, and Randy Kryn: - would moving this article to one of the three alternate suggestions be okay rather than filing a new RM? I think Zxcvbnm is correct that the current title is suboptimal. Ed, you suggested "Chinese mythology", which is fine by me. I don't think the other Four Symbols articles not having disambiguators is a big deal - it's okay to have Jupiter but Mercury (planet), say. SnowFire (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
- If you can persuade Zxcvbnm and Randy Kryn to support your proposed choice, then it would be OK to do the move. EdJohnston (talk) 23:52, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
- @SnowFire:@EdJohnston: I am fine with White Tiger (mythology) as a better alternative.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 22:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
- That works. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:29, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
- OK, I've done the move to White Tiger (mythology) due to the new consensus here. EdJohnston (talk) 03:51, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Asterism
[edit]I know many of our sources on the topic are similar messes of random list bric-a-brac but the article lead could do a much better job simply clearly saying the White Tiger of the West was simply a collection of all the principle asterisms in Chinese astrology and astronomy in the western quadrant of the sky. See particularly the clear treatment and illustrations (p. 329) in the treatment of China in
- Kelley, David H.; et al. (2005), Exploring Ancient Skies: An Encyclopedic Survey of Archaeoastronomy, New York: Springer Science+Business Media.
It also clarifies why there are only four 'direction guardians' despite Chinese culture having had five directions since remote antiquity. — LlywelynII 15:36, 28 July 2025 (UTC)