169 



see me. Leave this hole and you will meet me at a distance of 

 about 3 cho from the entrance". So Nittai left the hole and 

 actually beheld the Dragon-king, who arose out of the ground, 

 wearing a robe and a cap, and disappeared after having been 

 worshipped by the priest. The latter built a Shinto temple on 

 the spot and erected an image of the Dragon-king, which was 

 stiir there at the author's time (in the beginning of the thirteenth 

 century). Sutras were read at this shrine when people prayed 

 for rain; and when the Dragon-king lent a willing ear to the 

 prayers, a dark cloud hung over the hole. This cloud spread 

 over the whole sky and the rain came down. ' 



So tells the Kojidan; and it strikes us at once that a Buddhist 

 priest erected a Shinto shrine in honour of the Naga. The legend 

 was apparently invented by the Buddhists to convert this dragon- 

 hole, which probably was the abode of one of the mountain 

 dragons of old Japan mentioned above ^, into a place of Buddhist 

 sanctity. They changed the old Shinto cult into a Naga worship, 

 without going, however, as far as to replace the Shinto shrine 

 with a Buddhist temple. The Ryuketsu-jinja, the "Shinto-shrine of 

 the Dragon-hole", was afterwards called the Eyu-o-sha,ox Dragon- 

 king's temple, and was famous for the rain bestowing power of 

 its dragon-god. ^ 



The same dragon is called Zennyo{^ ^, "The Good Woman", 

 comp. the Zennyo, ^ $JJ , in the Sacred Spring Park, identified 

 with Anavatapta *), instead of Zentatsu, in the Genko Shakusho ^, 

 where the Buddhist priest Ringa ", who died in 1150, is said to 

 have been so powerful that, when he prayed for rain, Zennyo, 

 the Dragon-king, appeared. The same work states that the Bud- 

 dhist priest Keien ' lived for a thousand days as a hermit near 

 the Dragon-bole on Mount Murobu. On his way from there to 

 another place he crossed a bridge over a river, when suddenly 



mm'KZ±.^mm.^3.mf^mmm%±..mmm 



2 Pp. 135 sqq. 



3 Of. YosHiDA Togo ( ^ ffl ^"ffi-)'® Geographical Lexicon {Dai Nihon chimei 



4 See above, p. 162. 



5 Ch. XI. K.T.K. Vol. XIV, p. 828. 



6 3^^- ' ;^ H' ^^° ^^'^^ 1143—1223. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



