Dragon (Asian)

Semimythical Beast of East Asia. One of the four sacred animals of Chinese mythology. 

Variant names: Chen (Mandarin Chinese/Sino-Tibetan), Chi lung ("wingless dragon"), Chi'ih, Féi-yu, Fu-ts'ang lung ("treasure dragon"), Jiao lung ("scaly dragon"), Kiao lung, Kioh lung, Kura-mitsu-ha (Japanese, "dark water snake"), Kura-okami (Japanese, "dragon god of the valleys"), Kura-yama-sumi (Japanese, "lord of the dark mountains"), Long, Long-ma (Vietnamese), Lung ("five-clawed dragon"), Lung wang ("dragon king"), Mang ("four-clawed dragon"), Naga, Qiu lung ("horned dragon"), Riong (Korean/Altaic), Riu (Japanese), Shen lung ("spiritual dragon"), T'ao t'ieh ("glutton"), Tatsu (Japanese), Ti lung ("river dragon"), T'ien lung ("celestial dragon"), Ying lung ("winged dragon"), Yu lung ("fish dragon"). 

Physical description: A huge body with both serpentine and crocodilian characteristics. Has 117 fishlike scales. Straight horns like a deer's, through which it can hear. Flat, long head like a camel's. Has a bladderlike swelling on the top of its head. Bearded. Eyes like a rabbit's. Ears like a cow's. Tongue and neck like a snake's. The male has a luminous pearl concealed under its chin by a fold of skin. Long mane. Wings seen only in mature specimens. Belly like a frog's. Four feet, with claws like a hawk's. Footpads like a tiger's. Chinese dragons have four or five toes; Japanese dragons only have three. 

Behavior: Can fly without wings. Has the ability to change forms. Sometimes guards treasure. Lays a brightly colored, gemlike egg. Said to have a 3,000-year growth cycle in which it first looks like a water snake, grows a carp's head and scales, develops four limbs and a long tail, sprouts a pair of horns, and finally grows wings. A benevolent creature symbolizing authority, strength, experience, wisdom, and goodness. Originally the Chinese rain god, the Dragon was associated with the Chinese emperor, ancestor worship, fertility, and pools. 

Habitat: Wells, rivers, lakes (in China); the ocean (in Japan). 

Distribution: China; Japan; Korea; Indonesia. 

Significant sightings: The oldest known image of a Chinese dragon is a rock painting dating from 8000 b. c. that was found in 1993 on a cliff in southwestern Shanxi Province. 

In the fourth millennium b. c., a Dragon delivered the eight mystic triagrams, Hae Pa Kua, to a legendary emperor. 

The Northern Song emperor Huizong in a. d. 1110 classified all Dragons into five families- Blue Spirit Dragons, very compassionate kings; Red Spirit Dragons, the kings of lakes; Yellow Spirit Dragons, kings who receive vows favorably; White Spirit Dragons, virtuous and pure kings; and Black Spirit Dragons, the kings of mysterious lakes. 

Another official classification of Dragons divided them into Spirit Dragons that fly into heaven and Earthly Dragons that protect treasure or hide in the earth. 

The Russian monk Elder Barsanuphius served with a nursing detachment during the Russo- Japanese War. Some Chinese soldiers told him that in 1902, when they were stationed at a post in the mountains 40 miles from Muling, Heilongjiang Province, they saw a winged Dragon creep out from a cave on several occasions.

Sources: Nicholas Belfield Dennys, The Folk- Lore of China (London: Trübner, 1876), pp. 102-111; Charles Gould, Mythical Monsters (London: W. H. Allen, 1886), pp. 212-259; M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1913); J. O'Matley Irwin, "Is the Chinese Dragon Based on Fact, Not Mythology?" Scientific American 114 (1916): 399, 410; L. Newton Hayes, The Chinese Dragon (Shanghai, China: Commercial Press, 1922); Ernest Ingersoll, Dragons and Dragon Lore (New York: Payson and Clarke, 1928); L. C. Hopkins, "The Dragon Terrestrial and the Dragon Celestial," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1931, pp. 791-806, and 1932, pp. 91-97; B. Gokan, "Historical Review of Discussions on the Fossil Elephants Found in Japan in the Late Yedo Period," Chishitsugaku zasshi 45 (1938): 773-776; Maria Leach, Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1949-1950), vol. 1, p. 323; Martin Birnbaum, "Chinese Dragons and the Bay de Halong," Western Folklore 11 (1952): 32-37; Richard Carrington, Mermaids and Mastodons (London: Chatto and Windus, 1957); Frank James Daniels, "Snake and Dragon Lore of Japan," Folklore 71 (1960): 145-164; Jorge Luis Borges, The Book of Imaginary Beings (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1969), pp. 64-66, 82-84; Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden (New York: Random House, 1977); Donald A. Mackenzie, Myths of China and Japan (New York: Gramercy, 1994); Karl Shuker, Dragons: A Natural History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), pp. 86-93; Victor Afanasiev, Elder Barsanuphius of Optina (Platina, Calif.: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000).