45 



rains. Then one of Lu Kwang's attendants said to him : "A dragon 

 is a divine animal and an omen of a man's rise to the position 

 of a ruler. So you will attain this rank". On hearing this, Lti 

 Kwang was very much rejoiced; and actually he became a ruler 

 after some time '. The dragons being such important omens, it 

 is no wonder £hat Imperial proclamations often were issued on 

 account of their appearance =. 



Finaly, we may quote a divinatory work ^ which says: "When 

 the beginning rise of an Emperor or King is about to take place, 

 a dragon appears in the Yellow River or in the Loh. All examine 

 his head: if the head is black, men are correct; if white, the 

 Earth is correct; if red, Heaven is correct"*. 



§ 2. Bad omens. 



A. Fighting dragons. 



From olden times high floods, tempests and thunderstorms 

 have been ascribed by the Chinese to dragons fighting in rivers 

 or in the air. Although, according to the Yih king '*, "the tao 

 of dragons, fighting in the open field, is exhausted", i. e. their 

 blessing power makes the rain pour down in torrents, on the 

 other hand such severe thunderstorms often cause much damage 

 and calamities. Therefore, however welcome a dragon fight in 

 the air might be in times of drought, in ordinary circumstances 

 the threatening armies in the sky were looked at with great 

 fright. Moreover, the people believed the damage produced by 

 dragon fights in rivers or in the air to be not limited to the 

 actual calamities of the present, but to extend itself to the near 

 future, in other words, they were considered to be very bad 



1 Pao F'oh-tsze, jji'g ^[» ^ , written by KoH Hung, ^ "^ i i" the fourth cen- 

 tury; ^|» j^, Ch. IV (^ ^). 



2 The Emperor -Wen of the Han dynasty e.g. did so in B.C. 165, Books of the 

 Early' Han Dynasty, ^i^ "^ 2(S IB ' ^''- ^^! '^°™P- *^^ Emperor Suen's proclama- 

 tion in the summer of B. C. 52 (ibidem, ^ ^ TJS IE' ^''- ^^"' P' ^^''• 



3 The Yih kHen tsoh tu, ^ $t S -K ' '^""^^'^ '" ^^^ '^' ^■' ^^'^^' "^ ^ ' 



Ch. 130, fi^, il ^,P-2&. 



5 See above, p. 37. 



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