The Dragon Terrestrial and the Dragon Celestial: A study of the Lung, , and the Ch'ên,

Abstract

The Dragon is a Being, or rather, a nonentity, that though he never existed, has had to be invented. The human race soon found that it could not get on without him, and the imaginative fecundity of primitive man was called in to redress a biological oversight of Nature. When summoned to mythologic but influential life, he discovered no sinecure in his functions. Constant appeals from Oriental Rulers, Shamans, and the populace generally, to “co-ordinate” and “rationalize” his resources, in other words, to distribute rain more often, more widely, and more seasonably, may have seemed hardly compensated by his decorative popularity, or the flattering attentions of his pious but insistent devotees., Still noblesse oblige, and so the Dragon reigns among the thunder clouds above, and the thunder clouds (sooner or later) rain upon the earth beneath. Considerable research has been devoted to the Dragon by Western scholars, among whom may be mentioned Elliot Smith, and especially M. W. de Visser, who cites abundant passages from Chinese and Japanese authorities in his attractive volume. Japanese authorities in his attractive volume. And much earlier than either of the above, Gustave Schlegel had descanted fully upon the Dragon and its astronomic symbolism. The present essay, however, has a less ambitious aim, and a more restricted scope. Its object is twofold. In the first part it will present and publish (among the others) a form of the character lung “dragon”, which seems to have escaped the notice of all the Oriental epigraphists, whether Chinese or Japanese, so far as I can ascertain, but must be one of the most archaic, as it is perhaps the most elaborate, of the designs for the character in question.