सिंह (sinh)

also

शेर (sher)

and

बब्बर शेर (babbar sher)

Sher is used for both tiger and lion. To distinguish between the two, sometimes the lion is referred to as bababr sher.

If you want Sanskritised words, there are many synonymns for lion, such as:

केसरि (kesari), वनराज (vanraj, meaning king of the forests), अरि (ari).

But these are used only in literature, poetry etc.

For must purposes, सिंह is the appropriate word for lion in Hindi.



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Note added at 16 mins (2006-03-22 10:52:05 GMT)
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As far as the tiger is concerned, the standard term for it in Hindi is बाघ (bagh).

But as I pointed out above, sher is used for both. But it is good to distinguish between the two and I recomemend the use of सिंह (sinh) for lion and बाघ (bagh) for tiger.

For example, Government of India's Project Tiger is called बाघ परियोजना (Bagh Pariyojana) in Hindi.

Like the lion, the tiger too has many synonymns, but these are less frequently used:

शार्दूल (shardool), व्याघ्र (vyagra, infact the word बाघ is the simplified version of this Sanskrit term).

In Rajasthan, the tiger is called the नाहर (nahar).

So majestic and imposing is the tiger that villagers just refer to it as the जानवर (janwar, meaning just an animal or a wild animal).

For example,
बैल को जानवर ने मार दिया।
(Bail ko janwar ne mar diya, meaning, the bullock was slain by janwar, where janwar signifies a tiger.)



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Note added at 18 mins (2006-03-22 10:53:31 GMT)
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Incidently, the tiger is the state animal of India and is mentioned in our Constitution.

In the Hindi version of the Constitution, the word बाघ (bagh) has been used for the tiger.