Japanese dragon

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Japanese sea-dragon, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Japanese dragon, by Hokusai
Princess Tamatori steals the Dragon King's jewel, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
Emperor Antoku's grandmother rescuing him from a dragon, by Yoshitsuya Ichieisai
A dragon ascends towards the heavens with Mount Fuji in the background in this 1897 ukiyo-e print from Ogata Gekkō's Views of Mount Fuji.

Japanese dragons (日本の竜/龍, Nihon no ryū)

water deities or kami[2]
associated with rainfall and bodies of water, and are typically depicted as large, wingless, serpentine creatures with clawed feet.

Indigenous Japanese dragons

Yoshitoshi Tsukioka
The Dragon King's daughter, whose father the Dragon King lives at the bottom of the sea. By Utagawa Kuniyoshi

The c. 680 AD

Nihongi mytho-histories have the first Japanese textual references to dragons. "In the oldest annals the dragons are mentioned in various ways," explains de Visser,[3]
"but mostly as water-gods, serpent- or dragon-shaped." The Kojiki and Nihongi mention several ancient dragons:

  • Kiyohime (清姫, lit. 'Purity Princess') was a teahouse waitress who fell in love with a young Buddhist priest. After he spurned her, she studied magic, transformed into a dragon, and killed him.
  • Nure-onna (濡女, lit. 'Wet Woman') was a dragon with a woman's head and a snake's body. She was typically seen while washing her hair on a riverbank and would sometimes kill humans when angered.
  • Zennyo Ryūō (善如龍王, lit. 'goodness-like dragon king') was a rain-god depicted either as a dragon with a snake on its head or as a human with a snake's tail.
  • In the fairy tale "
    My Lord Bag of Rice", the Ryūō "dragon king" of Lake Biwa
    asks the hero Tawara Tōda (田原藤太) to kill a giant centipede.
  • Urashima Tarō rescued a turtle which took him to Ryūgū-jō and turned into the attractive daughter of the ocean god Ryūjin.

Chinese-Japanese dragons

Chinese dragon mythology appears to be the source of Japanese dragon mythology. Japanese words for "dragon" are written with kanji ("Chinese characters"), either simplified shinjitai 竜 or traditional kyūjitai 龍 from Chinese long 龍. These kanji can be read tatsu in native Japanese kun'yomi,[b] and ryū or ryō in Sino-Japanese on'yomi.[c]

Many Japanese dragon names are loanwords from Chinese. For instance, the Japanese counterparts of the astrological Four Symbols are:

Japanese Shiryū 四竜 "4 dragon [kings]" are the legendary Chinese Longwang 龍王 "Dragon Kings" who rule the four seas.

Some authors attempt to differentiate Japanese ryū and Chinese long dragons by the number of claws on their feet. In 1886 Charles Gould wrote that in Japan the dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws, whereas in China it has four or five, according to whether it is an ordinary or an Imperial emblem".[5] A common belief in Japan is that the Japanese dragon was native to Japan and was fond of travelling, gaining claws as it walked further from Japan; e.g. when it arrived in Korea, it gained 4-claws; and when it finally arrived to China, it gained five-claws.[1]: 94  However, contrary to the Japanese belief that the three-clawed dragons also originated in China and were introduced to Japan.[1]: 94  Three-clawed dragons were depicted in China earlier in history[1]: 94  and were the principal form of dragons which were used on the robes of the Tang dynasty.[6]: 235  When the Chinese dragons were introduced in Japan, they still had three claws.[1]: 94  Three-clawed dragons were seldom used after the Song dynasty and were later depicted with four or five claws in China.[6]: 235  Three-clawed dragons were briefly revived during the Qing dynasty.[7]

During World War II the Japanese military named many armaments after Chinese dragons. The Kōryū 蛟竜 < jiaolong 蛟龍 "flood dragon" was a midget submarine and the Shinryū 神竜 < shenlong 神龍 "spirit dragon" was a rocket kamikaze aircraft. An Imperial Japanese Army division, the 56th Division, was codenamed the Dragon Division. Coincidentally, the Dragon Division was annihilated in the Chinese town of Longling (龍陵), whose name means "Dragon's Tomb".

Indo-Japanese dragons

When

dragon king". de Visser (1913:179) notes that many Japanese nāga legends have Chinese features. "This is quite clear, for it was via China that all the Indian tales came to Japan. Moreover, many originally Japanese dragons, to which Chinese legends were applied, were afterwards identified with nāga
, so that a blending of ideas was the result.

Some additional examples of Buddhistic Japanese dragons are:

Dragon temples

Dragon lore is traditionally associated with

Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi
has an annual festival and fireworks show.

Temple names, like Japanese

Nara
in 596, "a purple cloud descended from the sky and covered the pagoda as well as the Buddha hall; then the cloud became five-coloured and assumed the shape of a dragon or phoenix".

The Kinryū-no-Mai "Golden Dragon Dance" is an annual Japanese

Kannon in the Sumida River, at which time golden dragons purportedly ascended into heaven. The Golden Dragon Dance was produced to celebrate the reconstruction of the Main Hall of the temple in 1958 and is performed twice yearly.[10]

Takenouchi no Sukune Meets the Dragon King of the Sea

Images

Dragon shrines

Japanese Dragon shrine in Fujiyoshida.

Japanese dragons are mostly associated with

Shinto shrines
as well as some Buddhist temples.

Kusanagi sword (which legendarily came from the tail of the Yamata no Orochi] dragon) back into the sea. In another version, divers found the sword, and it is said to be preserved at Atsuta Shrine
. The great earthquake of 1185 was attributed to vengeful Heike spirits, specifically the dragon powers of Antoku.

Ryūjin shinkō 竜神信仰 "dragon god faith" is a form of Shinto religious belief that worships dragons as water kami. It is connected with agricultural rituals, rain prayers, and the success[citation needed] of fisherman.

Dragons in modern Japanese culture

See also

Part of a series on
Japanese mythology and folklore
Mythic texts
Divinities
urban legends
Mythical and sacred locations
Sacred objects
  • Amenonuhoko
  • Kusanagi
  • Tonbogiri
Shintō and Buddhism

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ Or tatsu (竜/龍), in kun'yomi or ryō (龍) pronounced archaically. Cf. § Chinese-Japanese dragons.
  2. ^ As for tatsu (竜/龍), in kun'yomi, note that Japanese custom also followed the Chinese zodiac ("Year of the Dragon") system, in which case the character tatsu (辰) is used. This latter character has traditionally been frequently employed in personal names.
  3. set phrases, e.g., garyō tensei (画竜点睛), or riryō ganka no tama (驪竜頷下の珠, "jewel below the jaw of the black dragon").[4]

References

  1. ^
    OCLC 680519778
    .
  2. ISBN 978-3-8365-1448-4
    .
  3. ^ de Visser 1913, p. 135.
  4. ^ "ganka no tama" 頷下の珠【がんかのたま】. Seiseban Nihon kokugo daijiten 精選版 日本国語大辞典. Shogakukan.
  5. OCLC 1199763967
    .
  6. ^
    OCLC 40200406
    .
  7. JSTOR 3248384
    .
  8. ^ de Visser 1913, pp. 181–84.
  9. ^ de Visser 1913, p. 180.
  10. ^ "Kinryu no Mai (Golden Dragon Dance)". Ambassadors Japan. October 6, 2015.

Bibliography

External links

Media related to Japanese dragons at Wikimedia Commons

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