CHAPTER X. 



Conclusions. 



The preceding chapters have shown once more how great 

 China's influence was upon Japanese legend and superstition 

 from the beginning of the spreading of Chinese civilisation in 

 the Land of the Rising Sun until the present day. We have 

 also seen how Buddha's powerful doctrine brought the Indian 

 Nagas to the Far-Eastern seas and rivers and ponds, as it peopled 

 the Japan:6se mountains and woods with their deadly enemies, 

 the Grarudas. The idea of serpent-shaped semi-divine kings, living 

 in great luxury in their magnificent palaces at the bottom of 

 the water, wa's strange to the Chinese and Japanese minds; but 

 the faculty of these beings of assuming human shapes and 

 bestowing rain upon the thirsty earth, as well as their nature 

 of water-gods, formed the links between the Nagas of India and 

 the dragons of China and Japan. The Chinese Buddhists identified 

 the Indian serpents . with the four-legged dragons of China, and 

 this blending of ideas was easily introduced into the minds of 

 the Japanese people, which did not hesitate to associate their 

 own, mostly serpent-shaped, gods of rivers and mountains with 

 the Western deities of the same kind. 



In the Introduction we have seen that the Nagas were, as a 

 rule, favourably disposed towards Buddhism, but that they were 

 dangerous creatures on account of their quick temper, deadly 

 poison and great magic power. They possessed numberless jewels 

 and mighty charms, which they bestowed upon those to whom 

 they were grateful and who often stayed for a while in the splendid 

 Naga palaces at the bottom of ponds, or rivers, or s eas. The 

 TlafiaySfiar'scEoor speaks of eight Great Dragon-kings, mightier 

 than the others, one of whom, Sagara, was well-known as a 

 bestower of rain. The rain-giving faculty of the Tl^agas, which is 

 not mentioned in the Jatakas, was apparently more emphasized 

 in Northern than in Southern Buddhism. According to the original 

 conceptions these semi-divine serpents, who had their abode in 

 Patala land, beneath the earth, could raise clouds and thunder or 



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