The RBI Seal
THE selection of the Bank's common seal to be used as the emblem of the Bank on currency notes, cheques and publications, was an issue that had to be taken up at an early stage of the Bank's formation.
The general ideas on the seal were as follows:
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.1. the seal should emphasise the Governmental status of the Bank, but not too closely;
2. it should have something Indian in the design;
3. it should be simple, artistic and heraldically correct; and
4. the design should be such that it could be used without substantial alteration for letter heading, etc.
For this purpose, various seals, medals and coins were examined. The East India Company Double Mohur, with the sketch of the Lion and Palm Tree, was found most suitable; however, it was decided to replace the lion by the tiger, the latter being regarded as the more characteristic animal of India!
Sir James Taylor, the then Deputy Governor of the Bank, ordered preparation of fresh sketches by the Government of India Mint and the Security Printing Press at Nasik. His dissatisfaction was with the image of the tiger on the seal, presumably because it did not quite look like a tiger.
Sir James could not find anyone to photograph a live tiger. So he did the next best thing, and ordered the photographing of the statue of the tiger on the entrance gate at the Belvedere in Calcutta. Sir James was clearly a man hard to please; he was not happy with those sketches either. “The tiger”, wrote Sir James, apparently inclined to be a bit ribald, “looks too like some species of dog, and I am afraid that a design of a dog under a tree would arouse derision among the irreverent”.
A second effort produced better results with the tiger. But the palm tree went wrong. The fastidious Sir James wrote again, “The tiger is distinctly good, but the tree has spoiled it. The stem is too long and the branches too spidery, but I should have thought that by putting a firm line under the feet of the tiger and making the tree stronger and lower, we could get quite a good result from the design”.