What kinds of dragons are there?

For thousands of years, the people of China have created many dragons, including dragons of various colors and shapes, with various forms and varieties. There are mainly the following kinds: five-color dragon, ceratosaurus and ceratosaurus, legged dragon and footless dragon, pterosaur and pterosaur, a two-headed dragon and a catamaran.

Five-color dragon

Under the influence of the concept of five elements, people created five colors of dragon images, namely, Huanglong, Qinglong (black dragon), Black Dragon, White Dragon and Red Dragon. According to the concept of five elements, Qinglong lives in the east, Bailong in the west, Red Dragon in the south, Black Dragon in the north and Huanglong in the middle.

The book Shennong Begging for Rain, which describes the five-color dragon most clearly, says: "It rains in spring and summer, but it doesn't rain. A and B are called Qinglong, which is also a dragon, and it is the dance of oriental children ... "It describes in detail the way people used dragons of different colors to beg for rain in the pre-Qin period. Dong CuO's book, a great scholar in Han Dynasty, was written in the Spring and Autumn Period. "Begging for Rain" also describes in detail the custom of praying for rain with five-color dragons in Han Dynasty. The river map is also called the five-color dragon, but the book calls the black dragon Long Xuan (which means black in ancient times).

In the traditional concept of China people, Huanglong is the noblest, and it is a real dragon. None of the other famous dragons are real dragons. Ancient emperors were all real dragons, so they all wore yellow robes. Officials and ordinary people are not allowed to wear them, or they will be killed. Followed by Qinglong, Qinglong or Black Dragon, according to legend, Qinglong was worshipped in Xia Dynasty, which was recorded in detail in Taiping Magnolia and Song Shu.

Five-colored dragons were not sacred in ancient times, and there were many records of killing or shooting dragons in pre-Qin history books. Like Mozi. In Gui Yi, the way of "Emperor A and Emperor B killed dragons in the east and Ding Ding killed dragons in the south" was regarded as an ancient witchcraft, and the killed dragons were regarded as shaping dragons, with the purpose of arousing the anger of Long Zaitian and sending rain from the surface to eliminate drought.

Ceratosaurus and Ceratosaurus

It is generally believed that the prototype of the dragon is a snake, and some people think that it is an animal such as a crocodile. Neither snakes nor crocodiles have horns. But most of the dragon images in history have horns, and a few have horns. Adding horns on the faucet is to show that dragons are not ordinary animals, but sacred animals. Dragon horn, called "ruler wood" in ancient times, cannot ascend to heaven without ruler wood.

Why do you want to add horns to dragons? Many historians have discussed this and put forward different opinions.

Yuan Dexing, a scholar in Taiwan Province Province, put forward a special viewpoint. He believes that adding horns to faucets is the result of ancient genital worship. He thinks that the symbol with horns on the faucet is male genitalia, just like the original Chinese characters. This kind of genital worship, from prehistoric times to Erlitou culture in the early Shang Dynasty, and Anyang site in the late Shang Dynasty, I'm sorry to find that most of the unearthed objects are pottery and marble, and their shapes are exactly the same as the horns on the dragon head and the crowns on the crowns. However, this statement remains to be further demonstrated.

The addition of horns to faucets may be caused by ancient horn worship. In mammals, males have horns. In horned fauna, most of the leading males have big and strong horns, so horns are not only an important symbol of males, but also a symbol of strength and power. The main purpose of adding horns to the faucet may be to add divinity to the dragon.

Many dragons in ancient legends are horned dragons, such as Candle dragon. The ancient books didn't say there were horns, only that they were thousands of miles long. Another example is the dragon, Qiu and Kui, all of which are legendary ceratosaurus.

Dragons in China's traditional art are mostly two horns, which are called "one-horned dragons". Volume 96 of Yiwen Collection quotes Guo Pu's Shan Hai Jing Tu Zan as saying: "A corner of arowana is like a carp mausoleum. At that time, God will use you. Fly to the Nine Domains and ride the clouds. "

According to the images of dragons in a large number of ancient tombs, Luo Erhu believed that there were two kinds of dragons in the Western Han Dynasty: horned and horned. One is binaural Diptera, with a slightly curved front corner; The other is a dragon with wings and horns. Dragons in the Eastern Han Dynasty all had horns. By the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the lower part of the horn began to diverge, and several prominent edges appeared. The top of the horn curled forward and gradually began to change from the approximate angle to the approximate antlers. In the Tang Dynasty, the dragon horn changed, and obvious forked antlers appeared. In the Tang Dynasty, the horns diverged very long, similar to antlers. It increased in the Five Dynasties, and in the Song Dynasty, it was basically like antlers. However, dragons that looked like antlers in the early days still exist.

Ceratosaurus and Ceratosaurus are both artistic images created by the ancients. But from ceratosaurus and ceratosaurus, we can see the changes of ancient people's thinking mode and art.

Legged dragons and legless dragons

In ancient legends and art, some dragons have feet and some have no feet. Among the mythical dragons, Candle dragon has no feet. Candle dragon, also known as Yin Candle and Huainanzi. "Terrain Training" records: "Candle dragon, north of Yanmen, is hidden in the mountains of Yu Wei, and the sun is not seen. Its face is a dragon with no feet. "

According to the information we have seen so far, the earliest biped dragon is biped dragon, a kind of clam shell dragon in Yangshao, Henan Province, with only two feet. The mythical dragon has a foot dragon, such as nightshade. Shuowen said: Solanum nigrum is like a foot dragon.

Besides the one-legged dragon and the two-legged dragon, there are three-legged dragons. 1942 A wooden dragon was unearthed from the Chu tomb in Changsha, Hunan. It's a three-legged dragon. There is a "three-legged bird" in ancient legends in China, but there is no mythological record of "three-legged dragon". If it is really a three-legged dragon, it is rare.

Judging from the images of dragons in ancient tombs, dragons in the Western Han Dynasty generally have four short legs, which are like animal legs, with eagle claws and three toes, but some Western Han dragons without legs, feet and claws have also been unearthed. The image of dragons in the Eastern Han Dynasty is long, and the feet can be divided into animal feet and eagle claws. From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the limbs of dragons became slender, and some legless dragons were also found at this time. From the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Sui Dynasty, there were long hairs on the limbs of dragons, which were enough for three-toed talons. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, dragons had animal legs and eagle claws, and generally had three toes. Unlike before the Tang and Song Dynasties, the four-toed dragon appeared in the Song Dynasty.

With pterosaurs and without pterosaurs.

Dragons in ancient legends and art are mostly winged, and few are wingless. The earliest legendary pterosaur was Ying Long. Guangya. "Free Fish" records: "A pterosaur named Ying Long." The so-called "Ying Long" is probably the phonetic change of "pterosaur" or another name of "pterosaur". Because people in primitive times thought that lightning dominated the rain, and lightning was the embodiment of the dragon and snake, flying to the sky. The dragon snake that can ascend to heaven is not an ordinary dragon snake, but a dragon snake with wings. So people think of those dragons and snakes who can ascend to heaven as dragons and snakes with wings.

Some scholars believe that dragons in the pre-Qin period had no wings, while most dragons after the Western Han Dynasty had wings. Among the tombs unearthed in the Western Han Dynasty, there are both pterosaurs and pterosaurs. In the Western Han Dynasty, the dragon was interwoven by two or more dragons, forming the image of the intersection of Shuanglong or Duo Long. This kind of dragon has no legs, feet or wings. Except for the horns, its whole body is roughly the same as that of a snake. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, ordinary dragons had wings, but when they crossed the dragon, they had no wings. From the late Eastern Han Dynasty to the Eastern Jin Dynasty, most dragons had wings, and a few dragons had no wings. From the Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui Dynasty, some dragon wings have become slender strips, and some dragons are as big as little fingers. They are longer than feet, and there are red scales under their bellies. One has a mouth and eyes, and the other has no mouth and eyes like a snake. It is absurd that the two ends of the cloud can advance and retreat. Wings are made up of three slender ribbons, but some dragons have no wings. Dragons in the Tang and Song Dynasties all had one or two streamers.

A two-headed dragon and a two-headed dragon

In dragon culture, there are both two-headed dragons and two-headed dragons. Two-headed dragon refers to two levels with heads, that is, two dragons. Erti Dragon is a song in which two dragons are linked together.

Two-headed dragon or two-headed dragon should be derived from two-headed snake. The ancients believed that there were indeed two-headed snakes, and there were two kinds. One is two ya. The two-headed snake recorded in Dish: "There are bitter snakes in the north." The other is the two-headed snake recorded in the downstream "Ling Ji": "Two-headed snake, there are many snakes outside the ridge."

It is said that there are indeed two-headed snakes in nature. In 1970s, Zhongxing Liu, a reporter from China Daily in Taiwan Province Province, found a two-headed snake in Yiyang Lan and took photos to report it. I also heard of the two-headed snake when I was in my hometown in rural Guangdong, but I have never seen it with my own eyes.

Because the two-pass snake is relatively rare, it is regarded as a sacred object with changeable power. After the rain cleared, a rainbow appeared. The rainbow was curved and the two ends were similar, so it was stuck on the two-headed snake. Therefore, the word "rainbow" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions is mostly in the shape of two dragons, and the rainbow gods in bronzes and stone carvings are mostly in the shape of two dragons.

Related to these two dragons are the human face, the snake body and the gods with one or more heads on the left and right sides recorded in Shan Hai Jing.

Catamarans are invisible in nature. However, in the late Neolithic culture, some images of dragons with two bodies were found. For example, pottery pieces with dragon patterns unearthed in the second phase of Erlitou cultural site. The dragon is a two-body song, with a round tap, a short and sharp kiss, eye-shaped eyes and a diamond pattern on his forehead. Dragons are like snakes, covered in scales. The head has no horns, and the two bodies are separated in a figure of eight.

The catamaran originated from the legend of a catamaran. Shan Hai Jing. There is a fat snake with two bodies in Beishan Jing: "Hunshan is full of water, and the northwest flows into the sea." There is a snake, Song with two bodies, named Feiyi, which is a drought in his country. "