Ancient China did not have a lion when, why would the door set a pair of stone lions?

I believe that we must have seen the animal world as a child, right, when I was watching the "Animal World" when an animal can be said to be fresh in my mind it is the big lion in Africa. But now remember the lion heart will have a kind of doubt. That is, as a lion is not growing in Asia, why the creature, thousands of years ago appeared in the history of China? And why do we often put a lion sculpture at the entrance of traditional Chinese buildings? Let's clear up these doubts.

The earliest record of lions in China is in the Western Zhou Dynasty, but at that time it was a pattern on the bronze called? Taotie pattern, although the name is not the same but after expert research found that Taotie is actually a lion. And to the Han Dynasty with the development of the Silk Road, the lion this exotic beast has entered our vision. However, because at that time the lion mainly rely on the tribute of other countries to obtain, in the domestic cultivation has not been successful examples. This makes the lion became the most treasured animal at that time, and this situation has continued until the Qing Dynasty, which also led to the image of the lion in the ancient people class belongs to the mysterious existence of the people will be divided into the lion to the sacred beast layer, so the ancient craftsmen will be the lion as a guardian of the home and the guardian of the door of the sacred beasts.

But there is also an interesting phenomenon, because when the craftsmen in the carving of the lion to a large extent reference to the lion statue from the Western countries out of the lion statue, the lion is very hideous and there is a pair of wings, and with the continuous change of time and also experienced a lot of war in the middle of the lion's ferociousness is greatly reduced, to the early Tang Dynasty the lion's appearance has become very large, the wings disappeared and the appearance of the lion, the lion's appearance is very large, the lion's appearance is very large, the lion's appearance is very large, the lion's appearance is very large. Wings disappeared at the same time appearance also made great changes, and even some craftsmen will be the image of the lion to do more cartoon. This so that the lion has become a friend of the children's statue is only an example, but most of the lion after a long time of craftsmen to improve the still more in line with the aesthetic characteristics of our Chinese.