134 



aad worshipped it, abundant rains came down. Near to the same 

 spot was the Dragon'mother's grave, mentioned above '. 



§ 4. Palaces of Dragon-Kings. 



A Dragon-King's Palace is mentioned in the Luh i ki'^.- 

 According to a tradition among the sailors it was situated under 

 a small island about five or six days navigating from Su-cheu 

 (in Kiang-su province). Even when there was no wind, the waves 

 were so high there that no vessel dared approach it directly. 

 At every high tide, however, when the water overflowed the 

 island and the high waves were not to be seen,, the ships could 

 pass there. At night a red light was seen from afar above the 

 water on this . spot, bright like sunlight, which extended over- 

 more than a hundred miles square and reached the sky. 



The Wuh tsah tsu ' describes the same island, but, without 

 mentioning the light, says that it lies above the water, i^ed like 

 the sun. Although no human being dared approach it, a sound, 

 was heard on the island as if some thousands of men were busy 

 there cutting and transporting trees. On clear nights one could 

 see that all the trees on the mountains were felled. It was said 

 that this was done for building the Dragon-King's abode. Evidently 

 the Taoistic ideas concerning the island of the blessed, the land 

 of the sien, are confoimded here with the Indian conceptions 

 with regard to the Naga palaces. 



Finally, we may quote a passage from the T^ai-p^ing yii-lan *, 

 where a magistrate is said to have often received in his house 

 a beautiful dragon-woman, who each time arrived in a magnifi- 

 cent carriage, accompanied, by female postilions. In his former 

 existence he had promised to marry her, and now he kept his 

 word and finally disappeared with her. The people said that he 

 had gone to the Dragon-Palace 'and had become a "water-sz'era" 



(icfilj)- 



1 Book I, Cb. Ill, § 16, p. 89. 



2 ^ ^ m (ninth century, see above, p. 87, note 4). T. S. same section, Ch. 

 129, p. 14a. 



. ^ S. ^ y&, (^"'out 1592), in a passage translated into Japanese in the Heishoku 



wakumonchin, ^ 'j^ ^ 5^ 3^, written in 1710 by Kojima. Fukyii, E3 ill& 

 ^ 5^1 and printed in 1737, referred to by Indue Enryo, Yokwaigaku kdgi, Vol, II, 



Ch. XXVII (fl ^ fllj f|5), P- 123 sq. 



4 Ch. 424. 



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