CHAPTER VIII. 



THE INDIAN NAGA IN CHINA. 



§ 1. Beborn as a dragon. 



With regard to the Indian dragon {Nagd) in China we may 

 refer to the Introduction and to the following legends. 



Buddhist reincarnation into a dragon was said to have been 

 the fate of the Emperor Wu's Consort K'ih (first half of the 

 sixth century A. D.), who was so jealous that she was reborn 

 as a dragon which lived in a well inside the exclosure of the 

 Palace and frightened her husband in his dreams. When he was 

 in love with some woman, the water of the well was violently 

 disturbed. In order to appease the spirit, the Emperor had a 

 palace built over the well and all kinds of clothes and utensils 

 put there, as if she were still a human being; and he never 

 married again '. 



§ 2. Ponds inhabited by Dragon-Kings. 



According to another Buddhist legend ^ a Dragon-King, who 

 lived in a palace at the bottom of a pond called Kwun ming 

 clii ', appeared as an old man to a hermit who lived in the 

 neighbourhood, and besought this man to save his life, as a 

 Buddhist priest, under pretext of praying for rain by order of 

 the Emperor, made the water of his pond decrease more and 

 more, in order to kill him (the dragon) and to use his brain in 

 preparing some medicine. The hermit advised the dragon to go 

 Sun Sze-moh *, who was studying in the mountains in order to 

 become a sien. When the dragon did so, this man promised to 



1 History of the South ( ^ ^ , Nan-shi), f^ jlp ^\] '^ , "f* • 



2 Yiu-yang tsah Isu (ninth century), Ch. V (T. S., 1.1., ^U ^, p. Ha). 



3 a m'Mi.. 



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