Culture and faith
Fish in festivals, faith, art and national symbols. 35 fish on EveryFish so far.
Fish swim through the art, faith and symbols of many peoples. They appear in myths of floods and creation, as signs of fertility and good fortune, as national and state emblems and at the centre of festivals and rites. In South Asia, fish are tied to Hindu, Buddhist and Bengali traditions, and in East Asia carp and goldfish stand for luck, strength and abundance.
Fish in South Asia
In Hindu tradition, Matsya, the fish, is the first avatar of Vishnu, who saves Manu from a great flood. The Pandya kings of Madurai used a fish emblem, and the fish insignia of the nawabs of Awadh still decorates buildings in Lucknow. A pair of golden fish is one of the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism. In Bengal, a whole rohu is sent to the bride's home before a wedding, and hilsa is cooked for festivals. Kerala's state fish is the pearlspot and Maharashtra's the silver pomfret.
Fish around the world
In Japan, carp-shaped streamers called koinobori fly for Children's Day on 5 May, because carp are said to swim upstream against the current. Goldfish are kept for good fortune in China. Early Christians used the fish, ichthys, as a secret sign. In Irish legend, the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill gains wisdom from the Salmon of Knowledge. The hilsa is Bangladesh's national fish, and Hawaii's state fish is the reef triggerfish, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa.
Famous culture and faith fish
Still to be written: Ilish, Green chromide, Pampus argenteus, Atlantic salmon.
Further reading
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Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Rohu: Wiki Farazi, CC0, source
- Reef triggerfish: Qyd ( talk · contribs ), CC BY 2.5, source
- Koi: Asturio Cantabrio, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Goldfish: No machine-readable author provided. Heptagon assumed (based on copyri, Public domain, source