dragons

Re: dragons


I think it's the same....
but in China,we call ourselves sons of dragon...sth like that...

Thank you Raymond.

Is there anyone here from Japan and Korea who can help me out with this question?

Dragons, or dragon-like, creatures are found in many human cultures around the world. One might ask if there was/is a single source from which all of mankind's dragon stories are derived. What is the relationship of the European concept of dragons, the Asian dragon, and the feathered serpent of pre-Columbian America? They are all described as large snake-like creatures (note also the Naga of N.E. India), the often described as aerial creatures (wings, cloud associations. etc.), and they tend to be associated with water (rivers, lakes, rain, etc.). In China, dragons are imperial and in Britain are emblematic of royalty (Arthur Pendragon). There are also some differences. Europeans make heros of dragon slayers, but who in Asia would contemplate killing (even if it were possible) a dragon?

Even though there are many similarities, it would be hard to establish any sort of connection between European, Asian, American, and other cultural dragons. It can not be shown that European ideas about dragons originated in Asia, nor is there any apparent connection between the dragons of the Americas and the dragons of Eurasia. Almost certainly, dragon myths are not derivative, but have arisen independently in many human societies. If so there is probably some good reason for our need to incorporate dragons into the stories that define us. I'm sure there have been ethnological studies into the common sources of dragons, though just off the top of my head I can't recall seeing anything of the sort. If anyone has citations, I'd be interested in reading whatever crops up.

The question of this thread is whether there is any connection between the dragons of China, Korea and Japan. Did the dragon myths of North East Asia arise independently, or by cultural diffusion? It is possible that the Koreans and Japanese independently came up with dragons, but the evidence for cultural diffusion is pretty strong.

China has is one of the oldest cultural groups in the world. What we see as China today has been around for 4,000 years, and it has exerted extraordinary influence over its neighbors for almost the whole of its history. China exported religion (Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhism) to Korea, Japan and other neighboring lands. Without Chinese influence Korea and Japan would have remained illiterate. Chinese Court protocols were adapted and copied by the royal courts of Japan and Korea. Chinese art, inventions, and aesthetics were fundamental to both Korea and Japan. Why wouldn't the Chinese conception of the dragon and its significance not be found in both Korea and Japan?

Even if Japan and Korea at some distant time in the past independently came up with dragon stories, those aboriginal tales must have long ago been either smothered or incorporated into the Chinese model. It may be worth noting that dragons appear to be a much more important part of Chinese popular culture than they are in either Korea, or Japan.

China is composed of many tribes. It was the Han that conquered China and forced all of them to use one written language with many dialects unlike India where there is no Imperial order to conform to one language thus you have Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, etc.

Oh, by the way I think the dragon myths all came from Dinosaur bones found through out the world. Many of the myths regarding sphinx, dragons, and one eyed giants are the bones of various dinosaurs like triceratop and so on.

Dinosaur bones in mythology

They most likely speak different languages.