CHINESE DRAGON LORE
Dragon Rain-god and Tiger-god of Mountains and Woods—Thunder-gods
of East and West—Shark-gods as Guardians of Treasure—Dragon and
Whale—Fish Vertebræ as Charms—Dragon and Dugong, Crocodile, Eel,
&c.—Polynesian Dragon as “Pearl-mother”—Chinese Dragon and “Stag of
the Sky”—Babylonian Sea-god and the Antelope, Gazelle, Stag, and
Goat—Babylonian Dragon-slayers—Egyptian Gazelle- and
Antelope-gods—Osiris as a Sea-god—African Antelope and Asiatic
Dragon—The Serpent as “Water Confiner” in Egypt and India—Chinese
Dragon has “Nature of Serpent”—Ancient Attributes of Far-Eastern
Dragon—Dragon Battles—Dragons in East and West—Stones as “Dragon
Eggs”—Dragon Mother and World Dragon—Dragons and Emperors.
The Chinese dragon is a strange mixture of several animals. Ancient
native writers like Wang Fu inform us that it has the head of a camel,
the horns of a stag, the eyes of a demon, the ears of a cow, the neck
of a snake, the belly of a clam, the scales of a carp, the claws of an
eagle, and the soles of a tiger. On its head is the chiʼih muh lump
that (like a “gas-bag”) enables it to soar through the air. The body
has three jointed parts, the first being “head to shoulders”, the
second, “shoulders to breast”, and the third, “breast to tail”. The
scales number 117, of which 81 are imbued with good influence (yang)
and 36 with bad influence (yin), for the dragon is partly a Preserver
and partly a Destroyer. Under the neck the scales are reversed. There
are five “fingers” or claws on each foot. The male dragon has whiskers,
and under the chin, or in the throat, is a luminous pearl. There is no
denying the importance and significance of that pearl.
A male dragon can be distinguished from a female one by its undulating
horn, which is thickest in the upper part. A female dragon’s nose is
straight. A horned dragon is called kʼiu-lung and a hornless one
chʼi-lung. Some dragons have wings. In addition there are
horse-dragons, snake-dragons, cow-dragons, toad-dragons, dog-dragons,
fish-dragons, &c., in China and Japan. Indeed, all hairy, feathered,
and scaled animals are more or less associated with what may be called
the “Orthodox Dragon”. The tiger is an enemy of the dragon, but there
are references to tiger-headed dragons. The dragon is a divinity of
water and rain, and the tiger a divinity of mountains and woods. [63]
The white tiger is a god of the west.
Like the deities of other countries, the Chinese dragon-god (and the
Japanese dragon) may appear in different shapes—as a youth or aged man,
as a lovely girl or an old hag, as a rat, a snake, a fish, a tree, a
weapon, or an implement. But no matter what its shape may be, the
dragon is intimately connected with water. It is a “rain lord” and
therefore the thunder-god who causes rain to fall. The Chinese dragon
thus links with the Aryo-Indian god Indra and other rain- and
thunder-gods connected with agriculture, including Zeus of Greece,
Tarku of Asia Minor, Thor of northern Europe, the Babylonian Marduk
(Merodach), &c. There are sea-dragons that send storms like the
wind-gods, and may be appeased with offerings. These are guardians of
treasure and especially of pearling-grounds. Apparently the early
pearl-fishers regarded the shark as the guardian of pearls. It seized
and carried away the “robbers” who dived for oysters. The chief sea-god
of China sometimes appeared in shark form—an enormous lion-headed
shark.
Procopius, a sixth-century writer, says in this connection: “Sea-dogs
are wonderful admirers of the pearl-fish, and follow them out to
sea.... A certain fisherman, having watched for the moment when the
shell-fish was deprived of the attention of its attendant sea-dog ...
seized the shell-fish and made for the shore. The sea-dog, however, was
soon aware of the theft, and, making straight for the fisherman, seized
him. Finding himself thus caught, he made a last effort, and threw the
pearl-fish on shore, immediately on which he was torn to pieces by its
protector.” [64]
In Polynesia the natives have superstitious ideas about the shark.
“Although”, says Ellis, “they would not only kill but eat certain kinds
of shark, the large blue sharks, Squalus glaucus, were deified by them,
and, rather than attempt to destroy them, they would endeavour to
propitiate their favour by prayers and offerings. Temples were erected,
in which priests officiated, and offerings were presented to the
deified sharks, while fishermen, and others who were much at sea,
sought their favour.” [65] Polynesian gods, like Chinese dragons,
appeared in various shapes. “One, for instance,” writes Turner, “saw
his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle,
another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so
on throughout all the fish of the sea, and birds, and four-footed
beasts and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, even, gods were
supposed to be present.” [66] Here we meet again with the shell
beliefs. The avatars of dragons had pearls. In an old Chinese work the
story is told of a dragon that appeared in the shape of a little girl
sitting at the entrance of a cave and playing with three pearls. When a
man appeared, the child fled into the cave, and, reassuming dragon
form, put the pearls in its left ear. [67] As the guardian of pearls,
the Chinese dragon links with the shark-god of the early pearl-fishers.
There were varieties of these sea-gods. In Polynesia “they had”, Ellis
has recorded, “gods who were supposed to preside over the fisheries,
and to direct to their coasts the various shoals by which they were
periodically visited.” The Polynesians invoked their aid “either before
launching their canoes, or while engaged at sea”. It is of interest to
find in this connection that the dragon had associations with the
whale. Ancient mariners reverenced the whale. The Ligurians and Cretans
carried home portions of the backbones of whales. [68] The habit of
placing spines of fish in graves is of great antiquity in Europe. The
early seafarers who reached California during its prehistoric age
perpetuated this very ancient custom. Beuchat gives an illustration of
a kitchen-midden grave in California in which a whale’s vertebra is
shown near the human skeleton. [69] The swashtika appears among the
pottery designs of early American pottery. [70] The ancient Peruvians
worshipped the whale, and the Maori dragon was compared to one. [71] In
Scottish folk-lore witches sometimes assume the forms of whales.
The dolphin, the bluish dugong [72] (probably the “semi-human whale”
referred to by Ælian), and other denizens of the sea were regarded as
deities by ancient seafarers. De Groot, in his The Religious System of
China, quoting from the Shan hai King, relates that in the Eastern Sea
is a “Land of Rolling Waves”. In this region dwell sea-monsters that
are shaped like cows and have blue bodies. They are hornless and
one-legged. Each time they leave or enter the waters, winds arise and
rain comes down. Their voice is that of thunder and their glare that of
sun and moon.
The reference to the single leg may have been suggested by the fact
that when the dugong dives the tail comes into view. This interesting
sea-animal has been “recklessly and indiscriminately slaughtered” in
historic times.
Classical writers referred to some of the strange monsters seen by
their mariners as “sea-cows”. In like manner the Chinese have connected
denizens of the deep with different land animals.
The religious beliefs associated with various sea and land animals
cling to that composite god the dragon. In dealing with it, therefore,
we cannot ignore its history, not only in China but in those countries
that influenced Chinese civilization, while attention must also be paid
to countries that, like China, were influenced by the early sea and
land traders and colonists.
In Polynesia the dragon is called mo-o and mo-ko. “Their (the
Polynesian) use of this word in traditions”, says W. D. Westervelt,
[73] “showed that they often had in mind animals like crocodiles and
alligators, and sometimes they referred the name to any monster of
great mythical powers belonging to the man-destroying class. Mighty
eels, immense sea-turtles, large fish of the ocean, fierce sharks, were
all called mo-o. The most ancient dragons of the Hawaiians are spoken
of as living in pools or lakes.” Mr. Westervelt notes that “one dragon
lived in the Ewa lagoon, now known as ‘Pearl Harbour’. This was
Kane-kua-ana, who was said to have brought the pipi (oysters) to Ewa.
She [74] was worshipped by those who gather the shell-fish. When the
oysters began to disappear about 1850, the natives said the dragon had
become angry and was sending the oysters to Kahiki, or some far-away
foreign land.” It is evident that such a belief is of great antiquity.
The pearl under the chin of the Chinese dragon has, as will be seen, an
interesting history.
But, it may be asked here, what connection has a mountain stag with the
ancient pearl-fishers? As Wang Fu reminds us, the pearl-guarding
Chinese dragon has “the horns of a stag”. It was sometimes called, De
Groot states, [75] “the celestial stag”—the “stag of the sky”. This was
not merely a poetic image. The sea-god Ea of ancient Babylonia was in
one of his forms “the goat fish”, as some put it. Professor Sayce says,
in this connection, “Ea was called ‘the antelope of the deep’, ‘the
antelope the creator’, ‘the lusty antelope’. He was sometimes referred
to as ‘a gazelle’. Lubin, ‘a stag’, was a reduplicated form of elim, ‘a
gazelle’. Both words were equivalent to sarru, ‘king’.” [76] Whatever
the Ea land animal was—whether goat, gazelle, antelope, or stag—it was
associated with a sea-god who, according to Babylonian belief, brought
the elements of culture to the ancient Sumerians, who were developing
their civilization at the seaport of Eridu, then situated at the head
of the Persian Gulf, in which pearls were found. Ea was depicted as
half a land animal and half a fish, or as a man wrapped in the skin of
a gigantic fish as Egyptian deities were wrapped in the skins of wild
beasts. One of Ea’s names was Dagan, which was possibly the Dagon
worshipped also by the Philistines and by the inhabitants of Canaan
before the Philistines arrived from Kaphtor (the land of Keftiu, i.e.
Crete).
Ea was associated with the dragon Tiamat, which his son Marduk
(Merodach) slew. It is stated in Babylonian script that Ea “conferred
his name” on Marduk. In other words, Marduk supplanted Ea and took over
certain of his attributes, and part of his history. He was the god of
Babylon, which supplanted other cities, formerly capitals; he therefore
supplanted the chief gods of these cities.
Ea was originally the slayer of the dragon Tiamat and the conqueror of
the watery abyss over which he reigned, supplanting the dragon. [77] He
became the dragon himself—the “goat fish” or “antelope of the deep”—the
composite deity connected with animals deified by ancient hunters and
fishers whose beliefs were ultimately fused with those of others with
whom they were brought into close association in centres of culture.
Ea, who had a dragon form, was connected with the serpent, or “worm”,
as well as with the fish.
In Egypt Horus, Osiris, and Set were associated with the gazelle.
Osiris was, in one of his forms, the River Nile. He was not only the
Nile itself, but the controller of it; he was the serpent and soul of
the Nile, and he was the ocean into which the Nile flowed, and the
leviathan of the deep. In the Pyramid texts Osiris is addressed: “Thou
art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great-green (sea); lo, thou
art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about,
thou art round as the circle that encircles the Hauneba (Ægeans)”. [78]
Osiris was thus the serpent (dragon) that, lying in the ocean,
encircled the world. His son Horus is at one point in the Pyramid texts
(Nos. 1505–8) narrative “represented as crossing the sea”. [79] Horus
was sometimes depicted riding on the back of a gazelle or antelope. The
Egyptian antelope-god was in time fused with the serpent or dragon of
the sea. Referring to the evidence of Frobenius [80] in this
connection, Professor Elliot Smith says that “in some parts of Africa,
especially in the west, the antelope plays the part of the dragon in
Asiatic stories”. [81] When we reach India, it is found that the
wind-god, Vayu, rides on the back of the antelope. Vayu was fused with
Indra, the slayer of the dragon that controlled the water-supply, and,
indeed, retained it by enclosing it as the Osiris serpent of Egypt, or
the serpent-mother of Osiris, enclosed the water in its cavern during
the period of “the low Nile”, before the inundation took place. [82]
After Osiris, as the water-confining serpent (dragon) was slain, the
river ran red with his blood and rose in flood. Osiris, originally “a
dangerous god”, [83] was the “new” or “fresh” water of the inundation.
“The tradition of his unfavourable character”, Breasted comments,
“survived in vague reminiscences long centuries after he had gained
wide popularity.” Osiris ultimately became “the kindly dispenser of
plenty”, and his slayer, Set, originally a beneficent deity, was made
the villain of the story and fused with the dragon Apep, the symbol of
darkness and evil. This change appears to have been effected after the
introduction of the agricultural mode of life. The Nile, formerly the
destroyer, then became the preserver, sustainer, and generous giver of
“soul substance” and daily bread.
When the agricultural mode of life was introduced into China the
horned-dragon, or horned-serpent (for the dragon, Chinese writers
remind us, has “the nature of a serpent”), became the Osiris
water-serpent.
How a snake becomes a dragon is explained in the Shu i ki, which says:
“A water-snake after 500 years changes into a kiao, a kiao after 1000
years changes into a lung; [84] a lung after 500 years changes into a
kioh-lung, [85] and after 1000 years into a ying-lung. [86]” In Japan
is found, in addition, the pʼan-lung (“coiled dragon”), which has not
yet ascended to heaven. [87] The “coiled dragon” is evidently the
water-retaining monster.
The Chinese dragon is as closely connected with water as was the
serpent form of Osiris with the Nile in ancient Egypt, and as was Indra
with the “drought dragon” in India. The dragon dwells in pools, it
rises to the clouds, it thunders and brings rain, it floods rivers, it
is in the ocean, and controls the tides and causes the waters to ebb
and flow as do its magic pearls (the “Jewels of Flood and Ebb”), and it
is a symbol of the emperor. The Egyptian Pharaoh was an “avatar” of
Osiris, or Horus, [88] and the Chinese emperor was an “avatar” or
incarnation of the dragon. As water destroys, the dragon is a
destroyer; as water preserves and sustains, the dragon is a preserver
and sustainer.
The dragon, as has been indicated, is essentially the Chinese
water-god. “The ancient texts ... are short,” says de Visser, “but
sufficient to give us the main conceptions of old China with regard to
the dragon. He was in those early days, just like now, the god of
water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger of blessings, and the
symbol of holy men. As the emperors are the holy beings of earth, the
idea of the dragon being the symbol of imperial power is based upon
this ancient conception.” [89]
The Chinese “dragon well” is usually situated inside a deep mountain
cave. It was believed that the well owed its origin to the dragon. De
Visser quotes, in this connection, from an ancient sage, who wrote:
“When the yellow dragon, born from yellow gold a thousand years old,
enters a deep place, a yellow spring dashes forth, and if from this
spring some particles (fine dust) arise, these become a yellow cloud”.
A famous dragon well is situated at the top of Mount Pien, in Hu-cheu.
It flows from a cave, and is called “Golden Well Spring”. The cave is
known as the “Golden Well Cave”, and is supposed to be so deep that no
one can reach the end of it. There was a dragon well near Jerusalem.
[90] Other dragon wells are found as far west as Ireland and Scotland.
A cave with wells, called the “Dropping Cave”, at Cromarty, has a demon
in its inner recesses. The Corycian cave of the Anatolian Typhoon is
one of similar character. According to Greek legend, this
hundred-headed monster, from whose eyes lightning flashes, will one day
send hail, floods, and rivers of fire to lay waste Sicilian farms. [91]
The floods of the River Rhone were supposed to be caused by the “drac”.
In Egypt Set became the “roaring serpent”, who crept into a hole in the
ground, “wherein he hid himself and lived”. He had previously taken the
shapes of the crocodile and the hippopotamus to escape Horus, the
Egyptian “dragon slayer”.
In China the season of drought is winter. The dragons are supposed to
sleep in their pools during the dry spell, and that is why, in the old
Chinese work, Yih Lin, it is stated that “a dragon hidden in water is
useless”. The dragons are supposed to sleep so that they may “preserve
their bodies”. They begin to stir and rise in spring. Soon they fight
with one another, so that there is no need for a Horus, a Merodach, or
an Indra to compel them, by waging battle, to bring benefits to
mankind. The Chinese welcome what they called a “dragon battle” after
the dry season. Thunder-storms break out, and rain pours down in
torrents. If a number of dragons engage in battle, and the war in the
air continues longer than is desired, the rivers rise in flood and
cause much destruction and loss of life. As the emperor was closely
connected with the chief dragon-god, social upheavals and war might
result, it was anciently believed, in consequence of the failure of the
priests and the emperor (the holiest of priests) to control the
dragons. The dynasty might be overthrown by the indignant and ruined
peasantry.
Among the curious superstitions entertained in China regarding dragon
battles, is one that no mortal should watch them. It was not only
unlucky but perilous for human beings to peer into the mysteries. De
Visser quotes a Chinese metrical verse in this connection:
When they fight, the dragons do not look at us;
Why should we look at them when they are fighting?
If we do not seek the dragons,
They also will not seek us. [92]
In Gaelic Scotland the serpent, which is associated with the goddess
Bride, sleeps all winter and comes forth on 1st February (old style),
known as “Bride’s day”. A Gaelic verse tells in this connection:
The serpent will come from the home
On the brown day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground. [93]
As in China, a compact was made with the Bride serpent or dragon:
To-day is the Day of Bride,
The serpent shall come from his hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
And the serpent will not molest me.
It is evident that some very ancient belief, connected with the
agricultural mode of life, lies behind these curious verses in such
far-separated countries as Scotland and China. Bride and her serpent
come forth to inaugurate the season of fruitfulness as do the battling
dragons in the Far East.
When Chinese dragons fight, fire-balls and pearls fall to the ground.
Pearls give promise of abundant supplies of water in the future. It is
necessary, if all is to go well with the agriculturist, that the blue
and yellow dragons should prevail over the others. The blue dragon is
the chief spirit of water and rain, and this is the deity that presides
during the spring season.
A glimpse is afforded of the mental habits of the early searchers for
precious or sacred metals and jewels by the beliefs entertained in
China regarding the origin of the dragon-gods. These were supposed to
have been hatched from stones, especially beautiful stones. The colours
of stones were supposed to reveal the characters of the spirits that
inhabited them. In Egypt, for instance, the blue turquoise was
connected with the mother-goddess Hathor, who was, among other things,
a deity of the sky and therefore the controller of the waters above the
firmament as well as of the Nile. She was the mother of sun and moon.
She was appealed to for water by the agriculturists and for favourable
winds by the seafarers. The symbol used on such occasions was a blue
stone. It was a “luck stone” that exercised an influence on the
elements controlled by the goddess. In the Hebrides a blue stone used
to be reverenced by the descendants of ancient sea-rovers. Martin in
his Western Isles tells of such a stone, said to be always wet, which
was preserved in a chapel dedicated to St. Columba on the Island of
Fladda. “It is an ordinary custom,” he has written, “when any of the
fishermen are detained in the isle by contrary winds, to wash the blue
stone with water all round, expecting thereby to procure a favourable
wind, which, the credulous tenant living in the isle says, never fails,
especially if a stranger wash the stone.” Why a “stranger”? Was this
curious custom introduced of old by strangers who had crossed the deep?
Had the washing ceremony its origin in the custom of pouring out
libations practised by those who came from an area in which a complex
religious culture had grown up, and where men had connected a deity,
originally associated with the water-supply and therefore with the
food-supply, with tempests and ocean-tides and the sky?
The Chinese, who called certain beautiful stones “dragon’s eggs”,
believed that when they split, lightning flashed and thunder bellowed
and darkness came on. The new-born dragons ascended to the sky. Before
the dragons came forth, much water poured from the stone. As in the
Hebrides, the dragon stone had, it would appear, originally an
association with the fertilizing water-deity.
The new-born Chinese dragon is no bigger than a worm, or a baby serpent
or lizard, but it grows rapidly. Evidently beliefs associated with the
water-snake deities were fused with those regarding coloured stones.
The snake was the soul of the river. Osiris as the Nile was a snake.
His mother had, therefore, a snake form.
The haunting memory of the goddess-mother of water-spirits clings to
the “dragon mother” of a Chinese legend related by ancient writers, a
version of which is summarized by de Visser. [94] Once, it runs, an old
woman found five “dragon eggs” lying in the grass. When they split (as
in Egypt “the mountain of dawn” splits to give birth to the sun), this
woman carried the little serpents to a river and let them go. For this
service she was given the power to foretell future events. She became a
sibyl—a priestess. The people called her “The Dragon Mother.” When she
washed clothes at the river-side, the fishes, who were subjects of
dragons, “used to dance before her”.
In various countries certain fish were regarded as forms of the
shape-changing dragon. The Gaelic dragon sometimes appeared as the
salmon, and a migratory fish was in Egypt associated with Osiris and
his “mother”.
When the Chinese “Dragon Mother” died, she was buried on the eastern
side of the river. Why, it may be asked, on the eastern side? Was it
because, being originally a goddess, she was regarded as the “mother”
of the sun-god of the east—the mother who was “the mountain of dawn”
and whose influence was concentrated in the blue stone? The Chinese
dragon of the east is blue, and the blue dragon is associated with
spring—the first-born season of the year. But apparently the dragons
objected to the burial of the “Dragon Mother” on the eastern bank. The
legend tells that they raised a violent storm, and transferred her
grave to the western bank. Until the present age the belief obtains
that there is always wind and rain near the “Dragon Mother’s Grave”.
The people explain that the dragons love to “wash the grave”.
Here we find the dragons pouring out libations, as did the worshippers
of the Great Mother who came from a distant land.
The god of the western quarter is white, and presides over the autumn
season of fruitfulness. Just before the “birth” of autumn the Chinese
address their prayers to the mountains and hills.
In ancient Egypt the conflict between the Solar and Osirian cults was a
conflict between the “cult of the east” and the “cult of the west”.
Professor Breasted notes that although Osiris is “First of the
Westerners” (the west being his quarter) “he goes to the east (after
death) in the Pyramid texts (of the solar cult) and the pair, Isis and
Nepthys (the goddess), carry the dead into the east”. The east was the
place where the ascent to the sky was made. In Egyptian solar theology
it combined with the south. The rivalry between the two cults is
reflected in one particular Pyramid text in which “the dead is adjured
to go to the west in preference to the east, in order to join the
sun-god!” But to the solar cult the east was “the most sacred of all
regions”. In the Pyramid texts it is found that “the old doctrine of
the ‘west’ as the permanent realm of the dead, a doctrine which is
later so prominent, has been quite submerged by the pre-eminence of the
east”. [95]
This east-and-west theological war, then, had its origin in Egypt. How
did it reach China, there to be enshrined in the legend of the Dragon
Mother? Can it be held that it was “natural” the Chinese should have
invented a legend which had so significant and ancient a history in the
homeland of the earliest seafarers?
The dragon-gods that presided over the seasons and the divisions of the
world were five in number. At the east was the blue (or green) god
associated with spring, at the west the white god associated with
autumn, at the north the black god associated with winter (the Chinese
season of drought), and at the south were two gods, the red and the
yellow; the red god presided during the greater part of summer, the
rule of the yellow god being confined to the last month.
The dragons were life-givers not only as the gods who presided over the
seasons and ensured the food-supply, but as those who gave cures for
diseases. The “Red Cloud herb” and other curative herbs were found
after a thunderstorm beside the dragon-haunted pools. De Groot [96]
tells that fossil bones were called “dragon bones”, and were used for
medicinal purposes. The dragons were supposed to cast off their bones
as well as their skins. Bones of five colours (the colours of the five
dragons) were regarded as the most effective. White and yellow bones
came next in favour. Black bones were “of inferior quality”. The Shu
King, a famous Chinese historical classic, [97] tells that the dragons’
bones come from Tsin land. It is noted that the five-coloured ones are
the best. The blue, yellow, red, white, and black ones, according to
their colours, correspond with the viscera, as do the five chih
(felicitous plants), the five crystals (shih ying), and the five kinds
of mineral bole (shih chi). De Groot [98] gives the colours connected
with the internal organs as follows:
1. Blue—liver and gall.
2. White—lungs and small intestines.
3. Red—heart and large intestines.
4. Black—kidneys and bladder.
5. Yellow—spleen and stomach.
Apparently the special curative quality of a dragon’s bone was revealed
by its colour. The gods of the various “mansions” influenced different
organs of the human body.
In ancient Egypt the internal organs were placed in jars and protected
by the Horuses of the cardinal points. The god of the north had charge
of the small viscera, the god of the south of the stomach and large
intestines, the god of the west of liver and gall, and the god of the
east of heart and lungs. The Egyptian north was red and symbolized by
the Red Crown, and the south was white and symbolized by the White
Crown.
In Mexico the colours white, red, and yellow were connected with
different internal organs, and black with a disembowelled condition.
It is evident that the sea and land traders carried their strange
stocks of medical knowledge over vast areas. It is not without
significance to find in this connection that, according to Chinese
belief, there was an island on which dragons’ bones were found.
The dragons are not only rain-gods and gods of the four quarters and
the seasons, but also “light-gods”, connected with sun and moon, day
and night. In the Yih lin there is a reference to a black dragon which
vomits light and causes darkness to turn into light. The mountain
dragon of Mount Chung is called the “Enlightener of Darkness”. “When it
opens its eyes it is day, when it shuts its eyes it is night. Blowing
he makes winter, exhaling he makes summer. The wind is its breath.”
[99]
In like manner the Egyptian Ra and Ptah are universal gods, the sun and
moon being their “eyes”. Even Osiris, as far back as the Pyramid
period, was the source of all life and a world-god. He was addressed:
“The soil is on thy arm, its corners are upon thee as far as the four
pillars of the sky. When thou movest the earth trembles.... As for
thee, the Nile comes forth from the sweat of thy hands. Thou spewest
out the wind....” [100] Osiris sent water to bring fertility as do the
dragons, air for the life-breath of man and beast, and also light,
which was, of course, fire (the heat which is life).
The idea of the life-principle being in fire and water lies behind Wang
Fu’s statement: “Dragon fire and human fire are opposite. If dragon
fire comes into contact with wetness, it flames; and if it meets water,
it burns. If one drives it (the dragon) away by means of fire, it stops
burning and its flames are extinguished.” [101] Celestial fire is
something different from ordinary fire. The “vital spark” is of
celestial origin—purer and holier than ordinary fire. Dragon skins,
even when cast off, shine by night. So do pearls, coral, and precious
stones “shine in darkness” in the Chinese myths.
One traces the influence of the solar cult in the idea that the
dragon’s vital spirit is in its eyes. It is because iron blinds a
dragon that it fears that metal. In Egypt the eye of Horus is blinded
by Set, whose metal is iron.
There is a quaint mixture of religious ideas in the Chinese custom of
carrying in procession through the streets, on the 15th of the first
month, a dragon made of bamboo, linen, and paper. In front of it is
borne a red ball. De Groot says that this is the azure dragon, the head
of which rose as a star to usher in spring at the beginning. [102] In
like manner the Egyptian “spring” is ushered in by the star Sirius, the
mother of the sun, from which falls a tear that causes the inundation.
But although the red ball may have been a solar symbol, it is also
connected with the moon. The Chinese themselves call the ball “The
Pearl of Heaven”—that is, “the moon”. An inscription on porcelain
brings this out clearly. Mr. Blacker has translated the text below two
dragons rushing towards a ball as “A couple of dragons facing the
moon”. [103] The dragons were not only moon- and sun-“devourers” who
caused eclipses, but guardians of these orbs in their capacities as
gods of the four quarters.
The all-absorbing dragon appears even as a vampire. A tiger-headed
dragon with the body of a snake seizes human beings, covers them with
saliva, and sucks blood from under their armpits. “No blood is left
when they stop sucking.” [104] In Japanese legends dragons as white
eels draw blood from the legs of horses that enter a river. [105] Evil
or sick dragons send bad rain.
The gods ride on dragons, and therefore emperors and holy men can also
use them as vehicles. Yu, the founder of the Hea Dynasty, had a
carriage drawn by two dragons. Ghosts sometimes appear riding on
dragons and wearing blue hats. The souls of the dead are conveyed to
the Celestial regions by the winged gods. Dragons appear when great men
are born. [106] Emperors had dragon ancestors. The Emperor Yaou was the
son of a red dragon; one Japanese emperor had a dragon’s tail, being a
descendant of the sea-god. [107]
In the next chapter it will be shown that in Chinese dragon-lore it is
possible to detect with certainty the sources of certain “layers” that
were superimposed on primitive conceptions regarding these deities.