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Nine sons of the dragon

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Name for certain traditional Chinese decorative structures

The nine sons of the dragon is a traditional name for a set of mythological creatures whose imagery is used in certain types of decorations. The concept was first mentioned by Lu Rong in the Ming Dynasty, although similar set of creatures (not necessarily nine) is recorded even earlier.

List of nine sons

The oldest known attestation of the children of the dragon list is found in the Miscellaneous records from the bean garden (菽園雜記) by Lu Rong (1436–1494); however, he noted that the list enumerates mere synonyms of various antiques, not children of a dragon.

Several Ming Dynasty texts list what were claimed as the Nine Offspring of the Dragon (Chinese: 龍生九子), and subsequently these feature prominently in popular Chinese stories and writings. There are four principal versions of the list:

  • Lu Rong's (陸容, 1436–1494) list, which includes 14 creatures
  • Li Dongyang's (李東陽, 1447–1516) list, which includes 9 creatures
  • Yang Shen's (楊慎, 1488–1559) list, which also includes 9 creatures — this version is the most widely found one
  • Fang Yizhi's (方以智, 1611－1671) list, which combines elements of the previous lists

Below are all the creatures mentioned in these lists:

Image Placing Shape Names Fond of
Lu Rong Li Dongyang Yang Shen Fang Yizhi
under steles turtle 屭贔 霸下 贔屭 𧈢𧏡 heavy weights
tops of steles dragon 螭虎 贔屭 literary talent
under bridges lizard 饕餮 𧈢𧏡 蜥蜴 water
bronze vessels beast 饕餮 饕餮 food
sword handles demon 蟋蜴 睚眦 睚眦 睚眦 murder
roof corners dragon 螭𧉚 螭吻 鴟吻 gazing
roof ridges fish 鰲魚 蚩吻 swallowing fire
roof ridges dragon 𧖣𧊲 wind and rain
door knockers lion 獸𧉚 absorbing evil
door knockers spiral shell 椒圖 椒圖 椒圖 shutting its mouth
tower tops small dragon 虭蛥 虭蛥 peril
roof corners phoenix 嘲風 嘲風 peril
incense burners lion 金猊 金猊 狻猊 smoke
Buddha thrones lion 狻猊 sitting
bell tops small dragon 徙牢 蒲牢 蒲牢 蒲牢 roaring
prison gates tiger 憲章 狴犴 狴犴 狴犴 confronting
patrolling routes mermaid 金吾 金吾 being aware
lutes yellow dragon 囚牛 囚牛 music
  1. This term contains rare characters 𧈢 (⿰虫八) and 𧏡 (⿰虫夏), and may be mistakenly spelled as 蚣蝮, 趴蝮, or 蚣𧏡. It is thought to be a phonetic respelling of 霸下 (read as bàxià in Mandarin, ba-hah in Cantonese, and pà-hǎ in Hokkien).
  2. In modern popular usage, this term may be applied to all decorations found on roofs, including fish-shaped and dragon-shaped.
  3. This word contains rare characters 𧖣 (⿰虫蠻) and 𧊲 (⿰虫全), and its exact pronunciation is unknown.
  4. In modern popular usage, this term is often used for the lion-shaped door knockers instead of spiral shell-shaped knockers.

As seen in the table, some names are assigned to different creatures by different authors. Aside from these names, there are other variants in use, such as 負屭 for the dragons depicted on the tops of steles, or 龜趺 for the turtle found beneath the steles. The word "dragon head" (螭首) may be applied to some of the mentioned structures.

Some of these creatures are based on earlier mythological beasts, such as pulao or bixi, but most of them have no other mythological background and are merely used as names for decorative structures.

There are other creatures that have features of the dragon, but are not listed among the "nine sons of the dragon", including Kirin, Longma, Pixiu, and Denglong

Modern usage

In 2012's year of the Dragon, Shanghai Mint issued two sets of coins featuring nine sons of the dragon, one in silver and one in brass. Each coin in the nine-coin sets depicts one of the nine sons. A 10th additional coin was issued depicting the father dragon in silver and brass, which has iconography of the nine sons on the reverse, for a total of 20 coins in the series.

See also

References

Citations

  1. Yang Jingrong & Liu Zhixiong (2008), quoting Lu Rong. 菽園雜記 [Miscellaneous Records from the Bean Garden].
  2. 吾三省 (Wu Sanxing) (2006), 中國文化背景八千詞 [Eight thousand words and expressions viewed against the background of Chinese culture] (in Chinese), Hong Kong: 商務印書館 (Commercial Press), p. 345, ISBN 962-07-1846-1
  3. CCT3564: 2012 7.5 oz silver lunar dragon 9 sons of the dragon 9 coin set
  4. CCT4055: 2012 brass lunar dragon 9 sons of the dragon 9 coin set
  5. CCT3563: 2012 600 g silver lunar dragon 9 sons of the dragon father dragon
  6. CCT3610: 2012 brass lunar dragon 9 sons of the dragon father dragon
  7. CCT4243: 2012 lunar dragon 9 sons of the dragon 20 coin set Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography

External links

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