The Evolution of the Dragon Part 13

In the _Shu King_ there is a reference to the dragon as one of the symbolic figures painted on the upper garment of the emperor Hw.a.n.g Ti (who according to the Chinese legends, which of course are not above reproach, reigned in the twenty-seventh century B.C.). In this ancient literature there are numerous references to the dragon, and not merely to the legends, _but also to representations_ of the benign monster on garments, banners and metal tablets.[161] "The ancient texts ... are short, but sufficient to give us the main conceptions of Old China with regard to the dragon. In those early days [just as at present] he was the G.o.d of water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger of blessings, and the symbol of holy men. As the emperors are the holy beings on earth, the idea of the dragon being the symbol of Imperial power is based upon this ancient conception" (_op. cit._, p. 42).

In the fifth appendix to the _Yih King_, which has been ascribed to Confucius, (i.e. three centuries earlier than the Han dynasty mentioned by Mr. Minns), it is stated that "_K'ien_ (Heaven) is a horse, _Kw'un_ (Earth) is a cow, _Chen (Thunder) is a dragon_." (_op. cit._, p.

37).[162]

The philosopher Hwai Nan Tsze (who died 122 B.C.) declared that the dragon is the origin of all creatures, winged, hairy, scaly, and mailed; and he propounded a scheme of evolution (de Visser, p. 65). He seems to have tried to explain away the fact that he had never actually witnessed the dragon performing some of the remarkable feats attributed to it: "Mankind cannot see the dragons rise: wind and rain a.s.sist them to ascend to a great height" (_op. cit._, p. 65). Confucius also is credited with the frankness of a similar confession: "As to the dragon, we cannot understand his riding on the wind and clouds and his ascending to the sky. To-day I saw Lao Tsze; is he not like the dragon?" (p. 65).

This does not necessarily mean that these learned men were sceptical of the beliefs which tradition had forged in their minds, but that the dragon had the power of hiding itself in a cloak of invisibility, just as clouds (in which the Chinese saw dragons) could be dissipated in the sky. The belief in these powers of the dragon was as sincere as that of learned men of other countries in the beneficent attributes which tradition had taught them to a.s.sign to their particular deities. In the pa.s.sages I have quoted the Chinese scholars were presumably attempting to bridge the gap between the ideas inculcated by faith and the evidence of their senses, in much the same sort of spirit as, for instance, actuated Dean Buckland last century, when he claimed that the glacial deposits of this country afforded evidence in confirmation of the Deluge described in the Book of Genesis.

The tiger and the dragon, the G.o.ds of wind and water, are the keystones of the doctrine called _fung shui_, which Professor de Groot has described in detail.[163]

He describes it "as a quasi-scientific system, supposed to teach men where and how to build graves, temples, and dwellings, in order that the dead, the G.o.ds, and the living may be located therein exclusively, or as far as possible, under the auspicious influences of Nature". The dragon plays a most important part in this system, being "the chief spirit of water and rain, and at the same time representing one of the four quarters of heaven (i.e. the East, called the Azure Dragon, and the first of the seasons, spring)." The word Dragon comprises the high grounds in general, and the water streams which have their sources therein or wind their way through them.[164]

The attributes thus a.s.signed to the Blue Dragon, his control of water and streams, his dwelling on high mountains whence they spring, and his a.s.sociation with the East, will be seen to reveal his ident.i.ty with the so-called "G.o.d B" of American archaeologists, the elephant-headed G.o.d _Tlaloc_ of the Aztecs, _Chac_ of the Mayas, whose more direct parent was Indra.

It is of interest to note that, according to Gerini,[165] the word _Naga_ denotes not only a snake but also an elephant. Both the Chinese dragon and the Mexican elephant-G.o.d are thus linked with the Naga, who is identified both with Indra himself and Indra's enemy Vritra. This is another instance of those remarkable contradictions that one meets at every step in pursuing the dragon. In the confusion resulting from the blending of hostile tribes and diverse cultures the Aryan deity who, both for religious and political reasons, is the enemy of the Nagas becomes himself identified with a Naga!

I have already called attention (_Nature_, Jan. 27, 1916) to the fact that the graphic form of representation of the American elephant-headed G.o.d was derived from Indonesian pictures of the _makara_. In India itself the _makara_ (see Fig. 14) is represented in a great variety of forms, most of which are prototypes of different kinds of dragons. Hence the h.o.m.ology of the elephant-headed G.o.d with the other dragons is further established and shown to be genetically related to the evolution of the protean manifestations of the dragon's form.

The dragon in China is "the heavenly giver of fertilizing rain" (_op.

cit._, p. 36). In the _Shu King_ "the emblematic figures of the ancients are given as the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountain, the _dragon_, and the variegated animals (pheasants) which are depicted on the upper sacrificial garment of the Emperor" (p. 39). In the _Li Ki_ the unicorn, the phoenix, the tortoise, and the dragon are called the four _ling_ (p. 39), which de Visser translates "spiritual beings," creatures with enormously strong vital spirit. The dragon possesses the most _ling_ of all creatures (p. 64). The tiger is the deadly enemy of the dragon (p. 42).

The dragon sheds a brilliant light at night (p. 44), usually from his glittering eyes. He is the giver of omens (p. 45), good and bad, rains and floods. The dragon-horse is a vital spirit of Heaven and Earth (p.

58) and also of river water: it has the tail of a huge serpent.

The ecclesiastical vestments of the Wu-ist priests are endowed with magical properties which are considered to enable the wearer to control the order of the world, to avert unseasonable and calamitous events, such as drought, untimely and superabundant rainfall, and eclipses.

These powers are conferred by the decoration upon the dress. Upon the back of the chief vestment the representation of a range of mountains is embroidered as a symbol of the world: on each side (the right and left) of it a large dragon arises above the billows to represent the fertilizing rain. They are surrounded by gold-thread figures representing clouds and spirals typifying rolling thunder.[166]

A ball, sometimes with a spiral decoration, is commonly represented in front of the Chinese dragon. The Chinese writer Koh Hung tells us that "a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of lightning".[167] De Visser discusses this question at some length and refers to Hirth's claim that the Chinese triquetrum, i.e., the well-known three-comma shaped figure, the j.a.panese _mitsu-tomoe_, the ancient spiral, represents thunder also.[168] Before discussing this question, which involves the consideration of the almost world-wide belief in a thunder-weapon and its relations.h.i.+p to the spiral ornament, the octopus, the pearl, the swastika and triskele, let us examine further the problem of the dragon's ball (see Fig. 15).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese Embroidery in the Manchester School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon Symbol.]

De Groot regards the dragon as a thunder-G.o.d and therefore, like Hirth, a.s.sumes that the supposed thunder-ball is being _belched forth_ and not being _swallowed_ by the dragon. But de Visser, as the result of a conversation with Mr. Kramp and the study of a Chinese picture in Blacker's "Chats on Oriental China" (1908, p. 54), puts forward the suggestion that the ball is the moon or the pearl-moon which the dragon is swallowing, thereby causing the fertilizing rain. The Chinese themselves refer to the ball as the "precious pearl," which, under the influence of Buddhism in China, was identified with "the pearl that grants all desires" and is under the special protection of the Naga, i.e., the dragon. Arising out of this de Visser puts the conundrum: "Was the ball originally also a pearl, not of Buddhism but of Taoism?"

In reply to this question I may call attention to the fact that the germs of civilization were first planted in China by people strongly imbued with the belief that the pearl was the quintessence of life-giving and prosperity-conferring powers:[169] it was not only identified with the moon, but also was itself a particle of moon-substance which fell as dew into the gaping oyster. It was the very people who held such views about pearls and gold who, when searching for alluvial gold and fresh-water pearls in Turkestan, were responsible for transferring these same life-giving properties to jade; and the magical value thus attached to jade was the nucleus, so to speak, around which the earliest civilization of China was crystallized.

As we shall see, in the discussion of the thunder-weapon (p. 121), the luminous pearl, which was believed to have fallen from the sky, was h.o.m.ologized with the thunderbolt, with the functions of which its own magical properties were a.s.similated.

Kramp called de Visser's attention to the fact that the Chinese hieroglyphic character for the dragon's ball is compounded of the signs for _jewel_ and _moon_, which is also given in a j.a.panese lexicon as _divine pearl_, the pearl of the bright moon.

"When the clouds approached and covered the moon, the ancient Chinese may have thought that the dragons had seized and swallowed this pearl, more brilliant than all the pearls of the sea" (de Visser, p. 108).

The difficulty de Visser finds in regarding his own theory as wholly satisfactory is, first, the red colour of the ball, and secondly, the spiral pattern upon it. He explains the colour as possibly an attempt to represent the pearl's l.u.s.tre. But de Visser seems to have overlooked the fact that red and rose-coloured pearls obtained from the conch-sh.e.l.l were used in China and j.a.pan.[170]

"The spiral is much used in delineating the sacred pearls of Buddhism, so that it might have served also to design those of Taoism; although I must acknowledge that the spiral of the Buddhist pearl goes upward, while the spiral of the dragon is flat" (p. 103).

De Visser sums up the whole argument in these words:--

"These are, however, all mere suppositions. The only facts we know are: the eager att.i.tude of the dragons, ready to grasp and swallow the ball; the ideas of the Chinese themselves as to the ball being the moon or a pearl; the existence of a kind of sacred "moon-pearl"; the red colour of the ball, its emitting flames and its spiral-like form. As the three last facts are in favour of the thunder theory, I should be inclined to prefer the latter. Yet I am convinced that the dragons do not _belch out_ the thunder. If their trying to _grasp_ or _swallow_ the thunder could be explained, I should immediately accept the theory concerning the thunder-spiral, especially on account of the flames it emits. But I do not see the reason why the G.o.d of thunder should persecute thunder itself. Therefore, after having given the above facts that the reader may take them into consideration, I feel obliged to say: 'non liquet'"

(p. 108).

It does not seem to have occurred to the distinguished Dutch scholar, who has so lucidly put the issue before us, that his demonstration of the fact of the ball being the pearl-moon about to be swallowed by the dragon does not preclude it being also confused with the thunder.

Elsewhere in this volume I have referred to the origin of the spiral symbolism and have shown that it became a.s.sociated with the pearl _before_ it became the symbol of thunder. The pearl-a.s.sociation in fact was one of the links in the chain of events which made the pearl and the spirally-coiled arm of the octopus the sign of thunder.[171]

It seems quite clear to me that de Visser's pearl-moon theory is the true interpretation. But when the pearl-ball was provided with the spiral, painted red, and given flames to represent its power of emitting light and s.h.i.+ning by night, the fact of the spiral ornamentation and of the pearl being one of the surrogates of the thunder-weapon was rationalized into an identification of the ball with thunder and the light it was emitting as lightning. It is, of course, quite irrational for a thunder-G.o.d to swallow his own thunder: but popular interpretations of subtle symbolism, the true explanation of which is deeply buried in the history of the distant past, are rarely logical and almost invariably irrelevant.

In his account of the state of Brahmanism in India after the times of the two earlier Vedas, Professor Hopkins[172] throws light upon the real significance of the ball in the dragon-symbolism. "Old legends are varied. The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus: Indra, who slays Vritra, is the sun. Vritra is the moon, who swims into the sun's mouth on the night of the new moon. The sun rises after swallowing him, and the moon is invisible because he is swallowed. The sun vomits out the moon, and the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to serve the sun as food. In another pa.s.sage it is said that when the moon is invisible he is hiding in plants and waters."

This seems to clear away any doubt as to the significance of the ball.

It is the pearl-moon, which is both swallowed and vomited by the dragon.

The snake takes a more obtrusive part in the j.a.panese than in the Chinese dragon and it frequently manifests itself as a G.o.d of the sea.

The old j.a.panese sea-G.o.ds were often female water-snakes. The cultural influences which reached j.a.pan from the south by way of Indonesia--many centuries before the coming of Buddhism--naturally emphasized the serpent form of the dragon and its connexion with the ocean.

But the river-G.o.ds, or "water-fathers," were real four-footed dragons identified with the dragon-kings of Chinese myth, but at the same time were strictly h.o.m.ologous with the Naga Rajas or cobra-kings of India.

The j.a.panese "Sea Lord" or "Sea Snake" was also called "Abundant-Pearl-Prince," who had a magnificent palace at the bottom of the sea. His daughter ("Abundant-Pearl-Princess") married a youth whom she observed, reflected in the well, sitting on a ca.s.sia tree near the castle gate. Ashamed at his presence at her lying-in she was changed into a _wani_ or crocodile (de Visser, p. 139), elsewhere described as a dragon (_makara_). De Visser gives it as his opinion that the _wani_ is "an old j.a.panese dragon, or serpent-shaped sea-G.o.d, and the legend is an ancient j.a.panese tale, dressed in an Indian garb by later generations"

(p. 140). He is arguing that the j.a.panese dragon existed long before j.a.pan came under Indian influence. But he ignores the fact that at a very early date both India and China were diversely influenced by Babylonia, the great breeding place of dragons; and, secondly, that j.a.pan was influenced by Indonesia, and through it by the West, for many centuries before the arrival of such later Indian legends as those relating to the palace under the sea, the castle gate and the ca.s.sia tree. As Aston (quoted by de Visser) remarks, all these incidents and also the well that serves as a mirror, "form a combination not unknown to European folk-lore".

After de Visser had given his own views, he modified them (on p. 141) when he learned that essentially the same dragon-stories had been recorded in the Kei Islands and Minaha.s.sa (Celebes). In the light of this new information he frankly admits that "the resemblance of several features of this myth with the j.a.panese one is so striking, that we may be sure that the latter is of Indonesian origin." He goes further when he recognizes that "probably the foreign invaders, who in prehistoric times conquered j.a.pan, came from Indonesia, and brought the myth with them" (p. 141). The evidence recently brought together by W. J. Perry in his book "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia" makes it certain that the people of Indonesia in turn got it from the West.

An old painting reproduced by F. W. K. Muller,[173] who called de Visser's attention to these interesting stories, shows Hohodemi (the youth on the ca.s.sia tree who married the princess) returning home mounted on the back of a crocodile, like the Indian Varuna upon the _makara_ in a drawing reproduced by the late Sir George Birdwood.[174]

The _wani_ or crocodile thus introduced from India, _via_ Indonesia, is really the Chinese and j.a.panese dragon, as Aston has claimed. Aston refers to j.a.panese pictures in which the Abundant-Pearl-Prince and his daughter are represented with dragon's heads appearing over their human ones, but in the old Indonesian version they maintain their forms as _wani_ or crocodiles.

The dragon's head appearing over a human one is quite an Indian motive, transferred to China and from there to Korea and j.a.pan (de Visser, p.

142), and, I may add, also to America.

[Since the foregoing paragraphs have been printed, the Curator of the Liverpool Museum has kindly called my attention to a remarkable series of Maya remains in the collection under his care, which were obtained in the course of excavations made by Mr. T. W. F. Gann, M.R.C.S., an officer in the Medical Service of British Honduras (see his account of the excavations in Part II. of the 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Inst.i.tution of Was.h.i.+ngton). Among them is a pottery figure of a _wani_ or _makara_ in the form of an alligator, equipped with diminutive deer's horns (like the dragon of Eastern Asia); and its skin is studded with circular elevations, presumably meant to represent the spots upon the star-spangled "Celestial Stag" of the Aryans (p. 130). As in the j.a.panese pictures mentioned by Aston, a human head is seen emerging from the creature's throat. It affords a most definite and convincing demonstration of the sources of American culture.]

The jewels of flood and ebb in the j.a.panese legends consist of the pearls of flood and ebb obtained from the dragon's palace at the bottom of the sea. By their aid storms and floods could be created to destroy enemies or calm to secure safety for friends. Such stories are the logical result of the identification of pearls with the moon, the influence of which upon the tides was probably one of the circ.u.mstances which was responsible for bringing the moon into the circle of the great scientific theory of the life-giving powers of water. This in turn played a great, if not decisive, part in originating the earliest belief in a sky world, or heaven.

[137: "Precolumbian Representations of the Elephant in America,"

_Nature_, Nov. 25, 1915, p. 340; Dec. 16, 1915, p. 425; and Jan. 27, 1916, p. 593.]

[138: "History of Melanesian Society," Cambridge, 1914.]

[139: H. Beuchat, "Manuel d' Archeologie Americaine," 1912, p. 319.]

[140: "Representation of Deities of the Maya Ma.n.u.scripts," _Papers of the Peabody Museum_, vol. iv., 1904.]

[141: _Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_, Bd. 40, 1908, p. 716.]

[142: "Die Tierbilder der mexikanischen und der Maya-Handschriften,"

_Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_, Bd. 42, 1910, pp. 75 and 77. In the remarkable series of drawings from Maya and Aztec sources reproduced by Seler in his articles in the _Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_, the _Peabody Museum Papers_, and his monograph on the _Codex Vatica.n.u.s_, not only is practically every episode of the dragon-myth of the Old World graphically depicted, but also every phase and incident of the legends from India (and Babylonia, Egypt and the aegean) that contributed to the building-up of the myth.]

[143: Compare Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 94.]