There are real dragons living in China to-day. These are not the
horrible monsters that some have imagined them to be. They are friendly
creatures highly revered by all the people. They possess marvelous
powers and they occasionally permit themselves to be seen by mortal
eyes. Such is the belief of at least seven out of every ten Chinese.
The popular belief in the dragon is so deeply rooted and so widespread
that it is advisable for one to secure an accurate knowledge of the
Chinese idea of the venerated saurian if he desires to gain a truly
sympathetic understanding of this remarkable people. Nearly every phase
of Chinese life bears evidence of the influence of this unique member
of the animal kingdom. Particularly is this true in the realms of their
art, literature, folklore, zoölogy, history, and religion.
Chinese art employs dragon designs in endless variety. The graceful
lines of its symmetrically proportioned body are found in every part of
the country painted upon silks and porcelain, woven into brocades,
carved on wood, embroidered upon satin, cast in bronze, and chiseled
upon marble. It is the most characteristically Chinese of the many
Oriental designs which are so attractive to Western students of art.
The literature of the country abounds in references to this marvelous
creature as one may readily discover by even a cursory study of its
books of history, poetry, letters, medicine, and fiction.
Chinese folklore is replete with countless entertaining stories of the
wonderful feats of this great animal, while an infinite number of
proverbs and old folks’ sayings bear their testimony to the almost
universal belief in its existence.
Popular zoölogy places the dragon next to man, at the head of the list
of all living creatures, thus occupying the position of the lion or
tiger in our Western classification. Strictly speaking, Chinese natural
history gives the dragon the rank of king only of scale-covered animals
or creatures which live in the sea; the two fabulous creatures, the Chi
Ling and the Phœnix respectively, have first place above all beasts and
other animals which live upon the earth, and all birds and other
creatures which fly in the air. But because the dragon is equally at
home in the air and on the earth, as well as in the sea, it has been
ranked as the ruler of all created life below man.
Chinese geomancy for ages has looked to the dragon as a means of
determining the fates and fortunes of the “Sons of Han.” Until very
recently comparatively few Chinese would build a house or bury a corpse
without first consulting a geomancer, who would, in one way or another,
refer to its probable influence upon his action. It is, moreover, a
generally accepted belief that every twelfth hour, day, month, and year
of the lunar calendar are under the dragon’s dominating control.
Chinese history records scores of appearances of the king of beasts
through the four thousand or more years since the age of the three
mythical rulers. Appearances of the dragon are connected with the
stories of many prominent characters of China’s past. Perhaps the most
noteworthy reference is one which states that two dragons as guards of
honor visited the home of Confucius on the day that great sage was
born. These frequent references to the dragon are considered, for the
most part, by the majority of Chinese scholars quite as authentic as
the statements about the famous worthies themselves.
Chinese religion places the dragon in the calendar of its deities as
the God of Rain and the Ruler of Rivers, Lakes, and Seas. As such it
has been worshiped for centuries. There are probably very few cities of
any size in the whole country which, at least until the recent
revolution, were without a temple or shrine to the dragon king. This
deity was worshiped on the first and fifteenth of every month.
In the opinion of the writer dwellers in other lands commonly think of
the dragon in much the same light as they think of the centaurs, of
Geryon or the Minotaur of Grecian fables: a strange mythical creature
merely the product of human fancy. It is also probable that most of
them think that the majority of Chinese consider it in the same way,
but this is a mistaken conception. It may be considered a very
conservative estimate to state that at least three hundred and sixty
million Chinese believe in the actual existence of dragons as firmly as
other peoples believe that there are such animals as tigers roaming in
the jungles of Bengal and such monsters as walruses wandering over the
icy stretches which border the arctic circle, though they themselves
may never have set foot upon the shores of India nor have crossed the
Arctic Sea.
Quite recently the writer made a localized study of the universality of
the belief in dragons. One hundred representative Chinese of different
ages and walks in life in an important city were asked the following
questions: Do you believe in the present existence of the dragon? And
what percentage of the people of China do you think hold this belief?
Eighty-two of the one hundred answered the first question in the
affirmative. Regarding the universality of the belief in the dragon
these men estimated that at least eighty-six and six-tenths per cent of
their fellow nationals believe in its existence. The above study bore
out very accurately the writer’s estimate of the extent of the popular
belief in the dragon. His judgment was based upon questions asked many
scores of Chinese in ten different provinces of the country through a
period of fourteen years.