Do you feel confused about why Chinese people worship or fascinated with the image of dragon? And why Chinese people call themselves descendants of the dragon?
In western world,Influenced by Greek mythology, the dragon is often the keeper of treasure, so the dragon is often a symbol of greed and destruction. In addition to the image of “Saint George slaying the dragon” in the medieval manuscripts of Europe, there is also the Great Red Dragon in the Christian Bible’s Book of Revelation, which refers to Satan and the end times.
So how can Chinese people worship such kind of creature?
The answer is, the dragon concept in China is totally different from those in western’s mind.
Dragon, in Chinese, we also call it Loong, traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious power, strength, and good luck. In ancient China, Dragon, or Loong, represent emperor’s power, so only emperors has the privilege to posses items with dragon image, for example, dragon robe, any other person dared to keep one can lead to whole family disaster as to be killed. The emperors call themselves the true dragon.
In Chinese mythology, dragon is among deities. They even have jobs, as in Chinese legends dragons were appointed head of the four seas where they must keep order, as well as the job of bringing rain to the earth.
The worship for Dragon in China can be traced back as early as neolithic age, as some vivid dragon shaped items of that period were unearthed from various places. People believe the dragon image is evolved from several different animals like fish, pig, horse, crocodile,eagle, snake, etc, each animal may have be worshiped by different primitive tribes, when they banded together, their animal tattoos naturally would have chance to become a combined image. In China, the final combined image is dragon. From this perspective, dragon is not only a combined power, but also a spirit of cooperation based on openness and respect.
Dragon culture influenced china society very deeply. So it’s very easy to find Chinese dragon and its family members everywhere. Yes, it has a big family. Each of the family member of course would tell an aspect of Chinese spiritual world.
Now some people argued Chinese dragon should has its own name as Loong, so that would not be mixed up with the western dragon concept. How do you think?
