Yinglong

 


One of the most notable differences of Asian dragons from European dragons is the lack of wings, with Asian dragons having the magical ability to levitate effortlessly into the sky. This is true for most, but Yinglong is consistently depicted with wings, giving him a visually striking difference from other Asian dragons.

Yinglong means responding dragon, a fitting name as his role was to respond to the emperor when he had requests to send to the heavens. Yinglong was also a weather deity, responsible for bringing rainfall. A role he shared with many other dragons.

Yinglong appears several times in classic Chinese literature. In the Song of Chu, Emperor Yu was tasked with ending the floods destroying China when the previous emperors could not. He called on Yinglong to show him where to dig drainage canals. These canals then became the borders of the nine classical provinces of China.

In The Classic of Mountains and Seas Yinglong and the Yellow Emperor's daughter Ba battled against two rebellious deities, Chiyou and Kua Fu, who where bringing droughts to China. Kua Fu and Chiyou had a race to see who could outrun the sun. After running all day both were thirsty. Kua Fu drank the entire Yanzte river, while Chiyou sucked up all the clouds in the sky. The Yellow Emperor watching from the heavens saw that this was causing a drought and devastating crops, so he sent Yinglong and Ba to fight them. Yinglong went because he was the emperor's faithful servant, and because he was the bringer of rain to release the drought. Ba on the other hand was a drought demoness. Instead of being happy for the drought, she saw it as an insult to her office, and that droughts should be used to punish disobedient subjects, and not created out of carelessness. Yinglong first killed Kua Fu. In retaliation Chiyou shot his bow at the Yellow Emperor's palace on the mountain Successful-City-Carries-the-Sky. Ba slew him in retaliation. After the battle both Ba and Yinglong wanted to stay on Earth for different reasons, Yinglong to bring rain to the ailing Earth and to respond to people pleads for rain in the future. And Ba wanted to stay to punish all those who would rise up against the heavenly emperor. Yinglong and Ba knew that their conflicting domains would cause them to eventually fight, even though they were ordered by the Yellow Emperor not to. So they both moved to distance parts of China where they wouldn't cross paths. Yinglong went to the south, where rain is plentiful. And Ba went to the Taklimakan Desert, where according to legend it has not rained once in all of history. After these events people would make Yinglong statues of clay to ask for his assistance in bringing rain, a form of sympathetic magic.

In The Record of Strange Things, the growth stages of dragons was explained. An ordinary water snake after living for 500 years turns into a jiaolong dragon, a kind of river dragon incapable of flying. After another 500 years it would become a yinglong dragon and ascended to the heavens.

In Huainanzi it's said that all animals are descended from dragons, with different kinds of animal descending form different dragon lineages. The hoofed animals descending from the yinglong dragons. In both these later texts yinglong is referred to as a type of dragon rather than an individual as previously.

Yinglong was emperor's personal servant dragon, the one he called on to bring rain to the land and perform his magical orders. This was true for both the heavenly emperor and the Earthly human emperor. Over time the emperor became so associated with yinglong and dragons in general that the emperor was seen as metaphorically a dragon himself and believed to transform into a golden dragon, Huanglong, on death.  


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