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A dragon is a large magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence. Commonalities between dragons' traits are often a hybridization of feline, reptilian, mammal, and avian features. Scholars believe vast extinct or migrating crocodiles bear the closest resemblance, especially when encountered in forested or swampy areas, and are most likely the template of modern Oriental dragon imagery.
Chinese mythology is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of the mythology involves exciting stories full of fantastic people and beings, the use of magical powers, often taking place in an exotic mythological place or time. Like many mythologies, Chinese mythology has in the past been believed to be, at least in part, a factual recording of history. Along with Chinese folklore, Chinese mythology forms an important part of Chinese folk religion. Many stories regarding characters and events of the distant past have a double tradition: ones which present a more historicized or euhemerized version and ones which present a more mythological version.
Yu the Great (大禹) was a legendary king in ancient China who was famed for "the first successful state efforts at flood control," his establishment of the Xia dynasty which inaugurated dynastic rule in China, and his upright moral character. He figures prominently in the Chinese legend of "Great Yu Controls the Waters".
Erlang Shen, also known as Erlang of Guankou and the Lord of Sichuan, is a Chinese god with a third truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead.
Yinglong is a winged dragon and rain deity in ancient Chinese mythology.
Gonggong is a Chinese water god who is depicted in Chinese mythology and folktales as having a copper human head with an iron forehead, red hair, and the body of a serpent, or sometimes the head and torso are human, with the tail of a serpent. He is destructive and is blamed for various cosmic catastrophes. In all accounts, Gonggong ends up being killed or sent into exile, usually after losing a struggle with another major deity such as the fire god Zhurong.
Zhurong, also known as Chongli, is an important personage in Chinese mythology and Chinese folk religion. According to the Huainanzi and the philosophical texts of Mozi and his followers, Zhurong is a god of fire and of the south.
Hòutǔ or Hòutǔshén, also Hòutǔ Niángniáng, otherwise called Dimǔ or Dimǔ Niángniáng, is the deity of all land and earth in Chinese religion and mythology. Houtu is the overlord of all the Tudigongs, Sheji, Shan Shen, City Gods, and landlord gods world wide.
Gun, also known as Count of Chong, was a figure in Chinese mythology, sometimes noted as the father of Yu the Great, the founder of the Xia dynasty. Gun was appointed to the task of controlling the Great Flood by Emperor Yao on the advice of the Four Mountains. Gun used dykes to try to stop the flooding but the dykes collapsed, killing many people.
The Great Flood of Gun-Yu, also known as the Gun-Yu myth, was a major flood in ancient China that allegedly continued for at least two generations, which resulted in great population displacements among other disasters, such as storms and famine. People left their homes to live on the high hills and mountains, or nest on the trees. According to mythological and historical sources, it is traditionally dated to the third millennium BCE, or about 2300-2200 BCE, during the reign of Emperor Yao.
Yi was a tribal leader of Longshan culture and a culture hero in Chinese mythology who helped Shun and Yu the Great control the Great Flood; he served afterwards as a government minister and a successor as ruler of the empire. Yi is also credited with the invention of digging wells. He is the ancestor of royal family of Zhao, Qin, Xu and Liang.
Yu Shi is a Chinese spirit or god of rain, also known as or conflated with Red Pine, among other names. Translations of Yu Shi into English include "Lord of Rain" and "Leader of Rain".
Xirang, also known as hsi-jang, Swelling Earth, self-renewing soil, breathing earth, and living earth is a magical substance in Chinese mythology that had a self-expanding ability to continuously grow – which made it particularly effective for use by Gun and Yu the Great in fighting the rising waters of the Great Flood. This Chinese word compounds xí息 "breathe; cease; rest; grow; multiply" and rǎng壤 "soil; earth". Noting similarities with earth-diver creation myths, Anne Birrell translates xirang as "self-renewing soil", and compares other translations of "breathing earth", "swelling mold", "idle soil", and "living earth" or "breathing earth".
Feather Mountain is one of many important mythological mountains in Chinese mythology, particularly associated with the Great Flood. According to the mythological studies of Lihui Yang, Gun was executed on the "outskirts" of Feather Mountain by Zhu Rong, either for stealing the xirang or for failing to control the flood waters. According to K. C. Wu, Emperor Shun exiled Gun to Feather Mountain for lèse-majesté, but that Gun was not executed; and, rather, that such accounts result from misunderstanding the meanings associated with the ancient Chinese character jí (殛), which appears in certain source works.
Xiangliu, known in the Classic of Mountains and Seas as Xiangyao, is a venomous nine-headed snake monster that brings floods and destruction in Chinese mythology.
Hebo is the god of the Yellow River. The Yellow River is the main river of northern China, one of the world's major rivers and a river of great cultural importance in China. This is reflected in Chinese mythology by the tales surrounding the deity Hebo.
The Yellow River Map, Scheme, or Diagram, also known by its Chinese name as the Hetu, is an ancient Chinese diagram that appears in myths concerning the invention of writing by Cangjie and other culture heroes. It is usually paired with the Luoshu Square—named in reference to the Yellow River's Luo tributary—and used with the Luoshu in various contexts involving Chinese geomancy, numerology, philosophy, and early natural science.
The great flood theme, in which a flood almost wipes out the entire human race followed by the procreation of a brother and sister pair to repopulate the earth, is a popular mythological theme in China. Chen Jianxian (1996) said that this theme was one of the more popular legends which was still being told by more than 40 ethnics in China. There is a possibility that the myth is newer than the other Chinese great flood mythologies, because the oldest recorded sources about this myth were from Six Dynasties, save that the oral tradition maybe much older. The myth narrates a brother and sister incest and often confused with the myth of Nüwa and Fuxi. Another version paired Pangu with his unnamed older sister as the main characters of this myth.
Wuzhiqi is a supernatural being in Chinese mythology popularly depicted as a monkey-like aquatic demon and first described in the early 9th century.
References
- Yang, Lihui, et al. (2005). Handbook of Chinese Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533263-6