170 



a lady, noble looking and beautifully dressed, came and, without 

 showing her face, , politely asked him for the mudra (mystic finger- 

 charm) used to become at once a Buddha. At his question as to 

 who she was, she answered: "I am the Dragon Zennyo". Then 

 he taught her the mudra, whereupon she said: "This is exactly 

 the same mudra as that of the sev.en former Buddhas" ; and 

 when the priest requested her to show him her face, she replied : 

 "My shape is so terrible that no man can look upon it. Yet I 

 cannot refuse your wish". Thereupon she rose into the air and 

 stretched out the little finger of her right hand. It proved to be 

 a claw, more than ten shaku long, which spread a five-coloured 

 light. Then she vanished at once. ' 



A dragon of the same name (Zennyo) was said to live in the 

 Zennyo ryu-o chi'^ or "Dragon-king Zennyo's pond" near the 

 "Chapel of the thirty Gruardian-gods" ' on a mountain-peak in 

 Kawachi province, Ishikawa district, called Tomyo-dake or "Lan- 

 tern-peak" on account of a Dragon-lantern which was seen 

 there *, and in 3, lake on Mount Washio, in the same province, 

 Kawachi district (now Naka-Kawachi), near a Shinto temple. On 

 both these places he was prayed to for rain with much success ^. 



§ 6. Beborn as a rain-giving dragon. 



In the Kojidan " we read about Bishop Gronkyu, of Ewazan, 

 to whom in the midst of a dense cloud a sacred dragon appeared 

 together- with the priest Shokyu ', of the Western pagoda ^ on 

 Hieizan. This dragon was the "real shape" of Gobyo (f^^) 

 Daishi, i. e. Bishop Jie ', which Gonkyu had often prayed to see. 

 When he asked why the priest was in the dragon-god's company, 

 he was informed that Shokyu would become a relative of this 

 god (i. e. a dragon). As soon as Gonkyu awoke, he sent a 

 messenger to the Saito monastery in order to inquire after 

 Shokyu's health. On hearing that the priest had been ill for 



1 Genko Shakusho, Cb. XII, p. 840. 



3 Sanju banshin do, -— -j- 3^ |jft ^ . 



4 Yuho mei$ho ryaku, ^ ~k i^ fijr |^ , written in 1697 by Ryo-ei, "T ^; 

 Ch. IV, p. 59. 



5 Ibidem, Ch. IV, p. 51. 6 Ch. Ill, pp. 69 sq. 

 7 #}^. 8 Saito, @g:^. 



9 ^ tt- "At 6tfi ) Jis Daishi, a famous Tendai priest who lived 912 — 985 and 



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