Suiko, named plate by Toriyama Sekien
Printed label 水虎; a scaled, crouching water creature holds its hands near its mouth beside a rocky stream. Label and composition directly inspected; no transcription of cursive explanatory text is claimed.
Overview
Suiko, the water tiger, appears in Sekien's second encyclopedia and draws on a learned repertoire of Chinese strange creatures. The Smithsonian displays it beside hiderigami, the drought bringer, making their different water associations legible. The animal name is a useful point of recognition, but a tiger comparison does not make the image a zoological identification. Its significance belongs to the textual and visual classification of uncanny beings.
Japanese illustrations mediate the inherited subject through a particular artist's choices. This profile treats that printed character as the selected witness rather than reconstructing one original Chinese species from every later reference. The name, the water connection and the paired display are supported; a precise diet, population or oldest oral attestation is not supplied. An illustrated encyclopedia is evidence for an imagined repertoire and its transmission, not an inventory of verified animals.
Origins & earliest records
The selected work or object is a witness to this representation. Its date is not asserted to be the beginning of the tradition; textual layers and regional variants need separate review.
Records & interpretation
The linked source and contextual bibliography support the stated motifs. Material objects document iconography; narratives document imagined encounters. Neither alone is zoological confirmation.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki
Selected reading or object; bibliography is not exhaustive. Secondary links identify primary passages where a direct primary edition was not verified.
Family, evolution & connections
Tiger
Suiko’s water-tiger name invites comparison with tigers, but Sekien places it within a learned visual repertoire of uncanny beings. The real tiger reference clarifies the ordinary animal association only. It does not convert the historical image into a field identification or make its supernatural water role an observed animal behavior.
Primary records and illustrations
Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki
Volume 1; Smithsonian Libraries digitized copy. IIIF canvas index 14 (zero-based); Konjakuzokuhyak1Tori_0015.jp2
Printed label 水虎; a scaled, crouching water creature holds its hands near its mouth beside a rocky stream. Label and composition directly inspected; no transcription of cursive explanatory text is claimed.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Museum-library interpretation of primary platesKonjaku Gazu Zoku HyakkiResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Secondary referenceSuiko — contextual bibliographyResearch access: 2026-10-05
- Primary illustrated plate / institutional digitizationKonjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki — directly inspected IIIF canvas index 14 (zero-based); Konjakuzokuhyak1Tori_0015.jp2Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
Historical illustrationSuiko, named plate by Toriyama Sekien
Printed label 水虎; a scaled, crouching water creature holds its hands near its mouth beside a rocky stream. Label and composition directly inspected; no transcription of cursive explanatory text is claimed.
