佛教創造出種種有關獅子和佛陀聯繫在一起的話語，以獅子來裝飾和象徵佛陀的高貴、威嚴、智慧、勇氣和力量，乃是佛教用來對付其他外道的修辭手段。以佛陀世系而論，祖上曾獲獅子王稱號。早期佛教的本身故事創造了獅子王作為佛陀前身的話語，這位獅子王通過犧牲自己來世得以成佛。而佛陀自身修行經歷了四個階段，其禪修的最高階段也以獅子奮迅象徵。佛陀與外道鬥法則以獅子吼為象徵，作為百獸之王能夠摧伏諸多外道。佛陀說法也從而以獅子吼作為象徵，說法之地被稱為獅子座，一方面作為佛陀地位和權力的裝飾，一方面也作為佛陀力量和威嚴的象徵。從歷史背景來看，獅子作為佛陀權力裝飾和象徵乃與獅子在南亞地區的自然分佈和活動分不開。

This study shows that Chinese Buddhist literature has constructed many discourses on the link between the lion and the Buddha for ornamenting and symbolizing the Buddha's nobility, dignity, wisdom, courage and power. In Buddhist narrative, the lion, as the title of the Buddha’s grandfather, indicated the nobility of the Buddha, indicating his birth in a royal family. Later the lifetime practice of the Buddha was also linked with the lion.The fast running of the lion symbolized the highest degree of Buddha’s meditation. The roar of the lion as a rhetoric depicts the Buddha’s power against other heretics in early period. After the Buddha achieved his enlightenment and began to preach his teaching, the lion was again used in Buddhist literature as a symbol of the Buddha’s dharma power, wisdom, and majesty. Historically speaking, the lion as an ornament of the power and wisdom in South Asia reflected the order of local natural world and how this order was recognized and borrowed for symbolizing the political and religious order in the human realm.