- Source: Nine sons of the dragon
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:
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
Chi (mythology)
Chinese dragon
Chinese mythology
Chinese gods
Dragon King
King of the Gods
List of deities
Denglong (mythology)
References
= Citations
== Bibliography
=de Visser, Marinus Willem (1913). The dragon in China and Japan.
杨静荣 (Yang Jirong); 刘志雄 (Liu Zhixiong) (2008). 龙的繁衍与附会——龙生九子 [Dragon's derived and associated creatures: The nine children of the dragon]. 龙之源 [The Origin of the Dragon]. 中国书店. ISBN 978-7-80663-551-3.
External links
The Nine Dragon Scroll | Dragon History | The Circle of the Dragon
Legends of the 9 Sons of the Dragon
The Lascivious Dragon and Its Nine Sons with Pictures | MildChina.com
The 9 Sons of the Dragon on Vimeo
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