Chinese guardian lions standardized and formalized during the Ming and Qing dynasties into more or less its present form. (pinyin:) sì shì sì, shí shì shí, shí sì shì shí sì, sì shí shì sì shí, sì shí sì zhī shí shī zì shì sǐ de. (4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40, 44 stone lions are dead.) Chinese guardian lions Chinese guardian lions or Imperial guardian lions, often miscalled "Foo Dogs" in the West, are a common representation of the lion in imperial China. Chinese guardian lions are sometimes referred to in English as shishi, from the
Buru (legendary creature) a large Komodo dragon-like monitor lizard, and there are fossils of such a creature to be found in the Indian subcontinent. Heuvelmans notes similar reported creatures from Western India under the name of "jhoors" where they seem to merge into the Iranian traditional dragon or ahi (Azi Dahaka), which in Iranian art is basically a local stylistic adaptation of the Chinese dragon. George Eberhart notes rumors of a similar creature in the Tigris marshes of Iraq, called the afa, possibly the same thing as ahi. Heuvelmans also notes in his checklist of unknown animals that similar reports to the buru