In this post, I would like to talk about a very interesting Chinese Buddhist legend from Hunan, about the birth of the White Dragon, Bai Long, or "White Thundercloud".
According to the tale, the dragon’s mother was a human who lived during the fourth century AD. She was raped by an elderly man "on a stormy night" and was kicked out of her home by her upset parents. She wandered for a year, living as a beggar before giving birth to the dragon.
After seeing "the monster" she gave birth to, the poor woman got so frightened that she died from fear...
Full of grief, the White Dragon "unleashed a violent storm" over the land, then flew up to the summit of the hill and vanished.
The neighbours buried the White Dragon’s mother at the foot of the hill, later known as Dragon’s Peak.
The spot became a centre of religious pilgrimage, and a temple was erected on a summit of the hill.
An annual Buddhist festival takes place around the temple on the White Dragon’s birthday, the 18th day of the third month of the year...
Legends say the White Dragon comes each year to visit his mother’s tomb, arriving "as a thunderstorm" 10 days before his birthday...
So what is all this about? Dragon is a symbol of the sun and sun's heat during the hottest time of the year, Jul/Aug...In Western Asia, North Africa, Europe, Jul/Aug is also the driest part of the year...
The time of droughts...
Which is why in these parts of the world dragons breath fire, steal water and cause droughts and death...
And we have all the thunder gods chasing them away...
But in China, usually, the hottest part of the year is also the wettest part of the year...
Guizhou
This corresponds with the annual distribution of the thunderstorms in China (obviously)...
Hence in China, the dragons are associated with rain and thunder...They are basically animal calendar markers for the peak rain and thunderstorm season...I talked about this in my post "Chinese dragon"...
Hunan is in the south of China.
And in Hunan the summer monsoon rains peak slightly earlier. Here is the climate chart for Hunan. You can see that the precipitation suddenly increases during Mar/Apr...The third month of the Chinese calendar...
In the middle of this period, beginning of April, is when the White Dragon, was born. "The White Thundercloud" that comes back every year around the time of his birthday to visit the grave of his mother in Hunan...
The violent storm that the White Dragon unleashed on the land after the death of his mother, was a typhoon...
The typhoon season in South China Sea starts in May, right after the birth of the White Thunder Cloud Dragon, and peaks between Jul and Sep...During the hottest time of the year, which is marked by a dragon throughout Eurasia...Chart from "Typhoon activity and some important parameters in the South China Sea"...
Soooo...That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment