118 



The aim of this magic was to force the dragons to follow their 

 images and to ascend from their pools. It is no wonder that 

 sometimes drastic measures were taken to cause them to obey 

 this human command, when it failed to have success. Thus in 

 the tenth century of our era the head of two districts did not 

 hesitate to have an eartheh dragon flogged in order to force the 

 unwilling dragons to ascjiend; and he was right, for that very 

 day a sufficient rain came down '. 



As we have seen above, also Buddhist priests used images of 

 dragons in making rain. It is again a story from the K^ai-yuen 

 era, to be found in the same work^, which teaches us how they 

 sometimes employed them to stop rain. An Indian bonze was 

 requested by the Emperor to put a stop to the incessant rains, 

 caused by one of his Chinese colleagues, who by order of the 

 sovereign had prayed for rain and had fulfilled, his task with so 

 much success that several people were drowned in consequence 

 of- the inundations. The Indian priest made five or six dragons 

 of clay, placed them in water and scolded them in his mother-tongue. 

 Then he took them out of the water and laid them somewhere 

 else, laughing loudly. After a little while the rain stopped. The 

 meaning of this, magic was apparently different fi-om the ancient 

 Chinese ideas. By placing the dragons in their element, the water, 

 he gave them life, just like a Buddhist priest of the fourth 

 century did with a dead dragon which he had dug up. The latter, 

 however, after having thus made the dragon revive, by means 

 of incantations caused him to ascend to the sky and put a stop 

 to a heavy drought. ' His Indian colleague of the K^ai-yuen era, 

 on the contrary, with a scornful laugh removed the dragons after 

 having given them life, in order to cause their counterparts to 

 go away also. We may compare this with several instances of a 



or the beginning of the 11th century (cf. De Groot, Rel. Sysl., Vol. IV, p. 74), where 

 we read about a dragon painted on a wall, with a well befoi'c it, which was prayed 

 to for rain by people from far and near, and used to hear their prayings. Once in a 

 time of drought a drunken fellow had the audacity to rail at the dragon, lie cried 

 over the balustrade of the well: "If Heaven sends a drought like this, what is the use 

 of you?", and with a big stone hit one of the painted dragon's feet. The mark was 

 still visible in the author's time. When the man came home he suddenly got an un- 

 bearable pain in his foot. Although he sent a messenger to burn incense before the 

 dragon and to apologize, it was all in vain, and he died within a few days: T. S., same 

 Section, Ch. 129, p. lib. 



1 History of the five Dynasties, ^ 4^ d^ (907 — 960); Koh clii king yuan, 1.1.. 



2 Yiu-yang tsah tsu, Ch. III. 



3 T'^ai-pHtig yu Ian, Ch. 930. The same priest by his prayers caused two white 

 drasons to descend and to pour down rain over a district of a thousand miles. 



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