Japanese dragon
The Japanese word for dragon is ryū, written 龍, or in its simpler modern form 竜. The same character can also be read tatsu. In Japan the dragon, ryū, is a god of water. It brings the rain, lives in rivers, springs and the sea, and guards temple halls against fire. It is honoured and prayed to as something close to a kami.
龍 (ryū): dragon.
龍 is the traditional form of the character. Everyday modern Japanese more often uses the simpler 竜, which means the same thing. The dragon can also be read tatsu, the name it carries as a sign of the zodiac.
Ryū is the reading used in compounds and names, as in Ryūjin. Tatsu is the native Japanese word, and the dragon of the zodiac, the fifth of the twelve animals, is written with a different character, 辰.
Japanese dragons are long and serpentine, usually without wings, and move through clouds and water alike. Because they command the rain, farmers prayed to them in times of drought. At many shrines the water basin where visitors purify their hands pours from a dragon’s mouth.
Ryūjin, 龍神, means dragon god. In Japanese myth he is the dragon king of the sea, who rules the tides from a palace under the waves.
The greatest of the dragons is Ryujin, the dragon god of the sea, who rules from a palace beneath the waves, Ryūgū-jō. It is the palace the fisherman Urashima Tarō visits in one of Japan’s best-known folktales, returning home to find that centuries have passed. In legend, Ryujin also kept jewels that could raise and lower the tides.
Zen temples in Kyoto paint great dragons across the ceilings of their halls. As a creature of water, the dragon guards the wooden buildings against fire. Some are painted so that the dragon’s eyes seem to follow visitors wherever they stand.
The best-known dragons of Japanese tradition are Ryūjin, god of the sea; Seiryū, the blue dragon who guards the east; and Kuraokami, a dragon kami of rain and snow. Temple ceilings, shrine fountains and festival floats carry many more without names.
The Ryu Tee runs the full dragon vertically down the spine, its body following the length of the back, with 龍 set beneath it.
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