The Chinese consider the Dragon to be the strongest of mythological creatures and the most prominent member of their array of auspicious beasts. Most people are familiar with its form, but no one has seen a real dragon in the flesh.
The Dragon is an important component of Chinese culture and, down the ages, has served to symbolise the pursuit of fine items and prayerful yearning for them. From the earliest times, it was absorbed into the conventions of daily life and formed an “auspicious culture”. Its material manifestation was as the “dragon” totem, reflected in vernacular customs and different genres of artistic creation, for example, painting, utensils, architecture, and clothing.
2024 marks the year of Jia Chen in the sixty-year traditional Chinese cycle. It is represented by the “wood” element and is the year of the Dragon. It is also the auspicious year of the opening of the GuWei Museum. The Museum has specially selected items in the collection related to the Dragon and divided them into three categories: “The Dragon: Mythological Creature”, “The Phoenix: Queen of the Birds”, and “The Dragon and Phoenix Present Auspiciousness”. These are employed to introduce the unique roles of the Dragon and Phoenix inside Chinese culture, as well as the finer connotations of the notion “the Dragon and Phoenix present auspiciousness”.
Through the opening of the GuWei Museum, our earnest hope is to foster a finer cultural life for our visitors. The intention is to allow the blessing embodied in ‘‘the dragon and phoenix offer auspiciousness’’ to be extended and attain its full potential in modern society.
The Dragon: Mythological Creature
The Dragon is a Chinese totem whose origins can be explained in several different ways. Archaeologists have discovered that as early as seven thousand years ago, in the Yangshao Culture of the New Stone Age (c. 5000–2700 BCE), a decorative pattern appeared that combined the fish and snake, perhaps the original source of the dragon form. At the time, it was probably no more than an emblem of clan or tribe. Reflecting the frequent flooding that they suffered, it was revered as a protecting spirit as a result. Through several thousand years of unbroken evolution, the Dragon has been awarded the role of the auspicious pattern representing the “descendants of Yan and Huang” as the Chinese have come to view themselves.
The term “Yan and Huang” represents two ancestors of the Chinese people: the Flame Emperor (“Yan”) and the Yellow Emperor (“Huang”). Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor rode on the back of a dragon to ascend into Heaven. When the Flame Emperor died, he metamorphosised into a red dragon. For these reasons, the Chinese call themselves “the descendants of Yan and Huang” and “the successors of the dragon”.
According to the explanation of the character for “dragon” given by Xu Shen (58–148 CE) of the Eastern Han dynasty in his Shuowen jiezi (Speaking of text and explaining characters): [The Dragon is] “the epitome of scaly creatures. It can live in darkness or light and be slender, massive, short, or long. At the spring equinox, it ascends to Heaven; at the autumn equinox, it sinks to the depths.” This indicates that the Dragon can adopt a multitude of guises and respond to the requirements of the time, ploughing the clouds and scattering the rain, the arbiter of agricultural production, with which the livelihoods of the common people are intimately linked. The usual image of the Dragon invoked nowadays is a combination of the body parts of nine different animals: rabbit eyes, deer horns, ox mouth, camel head, clam-like abdomen, tiger paws, eagle talons, fish scales, and snake body. Its magical powers are manifold: it can exorcise evil and cause happiness to descend, and it receives the enthusiastic adoration of all.
During the imperial era, the emperor named himself the embodiment of the Dragon. “Gaozu benji” (Annals of Emperor Gaozu) of Hanshu (The book of the Han dynasty) records that Liu Bang’s mother dreamt that a dragon possessed her and thus conceived him. He was born with a “high nose and dragon face”. As the “truth-commanded Son of Heaven”, he was the incarnation of the Dragon in the human sphere, and in this way, mythology entered the historical record. Written in the state of Wei as founded by the Cao clan during the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, the section “Shigu” (Explaining the ancient) of the text Guangya (An expanded version of the ancient Erya dictionary) by Zhang Yi contains the phrase: “The term “dragon” means “ruler”. Later, this developed into the emperor sitting on the “dragon throne”, wearing the “dragon robe”, and borrowing the magical strength and impressive dignity of the Dragon to establish supreme and unassailable imperial authority. “The five-clawed golden dragon” was, moreover, used for a long period as the emblematic imperial pattern.
Dragon patterns are often matched to auspicious clouds, and this expresses yearnings for the favourable weather of gentle winds and seasonable rain. In addition, through lives permeated with vernacular activities such as dragon boat racing, dragon dancing, and wearing adornments bearing dragon patterns, earnest desires for peace and a plentiful harvest are expressed.
The Phoenix: Queen of the Birds
In Chinese mythology, the phoenix is the most beautiful auspicious bird, and in its earliest form, it was also a clan totem of distant antiquity that possessed mysterious qualities. Legend has it that when the phoenix appeared, the myriad varieties of birds would flock together, and the fortunes of the empire would greatly prosper. With the world under Heaven (China) at peace, it was as if the phoenix and Dragon, of equal status, were situated at opposite ends of a hall, offering salutations to one other.
In another legend, the feng phoenix is the male, while the huang phoenix is the female. Taken together, the “feng-huang“ phoenix causes happiness. Every five hundred years, bearing the burden of the accumulated karma of humankind, it plunges into a fiery furnace and so ends its life in exchange for rejuvenating Auspiciousness and happiness in the human sphere. Finally, by bathing in fire, it obtains rebirth, and this is called “the nirvana of feng-huang“, which symbolises an unyielding and unflinching resilience of spirit. For this reason, feng-huang is also employed as a metaphor for the sage.
Combining Xu Shen’s Shuowen jiezi and Erya zhu (Commentary on the ancient Erya dictionary) by Guo Pu (276–324) of the Eastern Jin dynasty, the image of the phoenix that is created consists of “a hen’s beak, snake’s neck, swallow’s jawbone, tortoise’s back, and fish’s tail, of the Five Colours in hue, approximately six chi feet tall, emerging from the land of the Eastern Ruler, and hovering and soaring beyond the Four Seas…“. This is a synthesis of the characteristics of many different auspicious beasts. It also reflects that in their totemic representation, phoenix feathers are long and slender and its entire body is brightly and gaudily coloured. In appearance, it resembles a noble and beautiful lady, which gradually allows the viewer to forget its masculine status. In the Tang dynasty, when Wu Zetian had herself elevated from empress consort to empress in her own right, the name of the central legal and administrative organs of government was changed to “feng-phoenix pavilion, luan-phoenix terrace“, which greatly enhanced the status of the phoenix. The Dragon represented the male emperor, whereas the feng-phoenix represented the female “emperor“. Through this process, the feng-phoenix gradually transformed into a female bird.
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