236 



to pacify the Dragon-kings by throwing all kinds of precious 

 objects into the sea, and succeeded if the object which these 

 water-gods wanted was offered in time. Ponds, especially moun- 

 tain ponds, were very often believed to be the abodes of Dragon- 

 kings, who probably in many cases. had' taken the place of 

 ancient Japanese d]-agon-shaped gods. Sometimes one of the eight 

 kings incarnated himself as some famous Buddhist high-priest, 

 or the spirit of a man became a dragon-god. The temple bell 

 of Miidera is said to have been obtained by Tawara Toda in a 

 Dragon -palace. Azure dragons (a Chinese feature) were often said 

 to have appeared on the occasion of the establishment of Bud- 

 dhist temples and to have thenceforth been the guardian-gods 

 of these shrines '. Sometimes dragon-relics, as for example a few 

 scales or a tooth, were preserved among the treasures of a 

 Buddhist sanctuary. Finally, eight- and nine-headed dragons were 

 spoken of as the inhabitants of mountain lakes, being sometimes 

 reincarnations of Buddhist priests ; and down till the Kestoration 

 offerings of rice were made by Buddhist priests to the dragons 

 of some of those lakes. 



The mighty influence of the Indian and Chinese ideas concerning 

 this subject upon the Japanese mind is also shown by the 

 way in which these conceptions were applied to ancient Shinto 

 gods. In Chapter V some specimens of this have been given, 

 which were found in books of the thirteenth and eighteenth 

 centuries. In the former the eight-headed serpent, called Tamato 

 no oroehi and killed by Susanowo, as well as the unhappy young 

 Emperor Antoku who was drowned in the battle of Dan-no-ura 

 (1185) and whose spirit is said to be the Shinto god Suitengu, 

 are identified with the goddess of Itsukushima, the daughter 

 of the Dragon-king Sagara! And the precious Kusanagi sword, 

 found in the eight-headed serpent's tail, belonged to this king's 

 Dragon-palace, or, according to another legend, was carefully 

 guarded by a Dragon-king and brought back to the Atsuta 

 shrine, from where it had been stolen. The Thunder-god, accor- 

 ding to an old legend caught by Sukaru, was called a "Dragon- 

 king" by the author of the Gempei seisuiki (thirteenth century), 

 which was all the more plausible because the version of the 

 Nihongi spoke of a huge serpent. Further, several old Shinto 

 shrines, where probably from olden times snake-, or dragon-shaped 

 gods were' worshipped, in later times, in the eighteenth century, 

 were considered to have connection with Chinese or Indian 



1 Cf. above, Book II, Ch. VI, pp. 205 sqq. 



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