Jiaolong

The jiaolong, or jiao, is a Chinese water dragon of rivers, lakes, and floods, often described as scaly and not yet fully a dragon, and feared for drowning people and overturning boats.

What a Jiao Is

The jiao is one of the oldest named dragons in China. The Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) mentions jiao living in several rivers, including "tiger-jiao" with the body of a fish and the tail of a snake. The philosopher Xunzi, in the third century BCE, wrote that just as piled earth becomes a mountain, "piled water becomes a pool, and the jiaolong is born there." Over time jiao and lóng were joined into one word, jiaolong.

Writers did not agree on exactly what the jiao looked like. The commentator Guo Pu (276–324) said it resembled a snake with four legs. Later books called it a scaly dragon, and some treated it as a stage on the way to becoming a true dragon: the Shuyi ji says a water snake turns into a jiao after 500 years, and a jiao becomes a lóng after a thousand.

Powers and Danger

The jiao ruled the creatures of the water. A fish-rearing manual quoted by later encyclopedias says that when a pond holds 360 fish, a jiao comes to be their chief and flies off leading them. Unlike the rain dragons of heaven, though, the jiao was often a menace. It was blamed for floods, sinking boats, and dragging swimmers under. The ritual calendar preserved in the Liji (Book of Rites) even orders the fishing officials to kill jiao in the last month of summer.

Zhou Chu and the Three Scourges

The most famous jiao story is told in the fifth-century Shishuo xinyu (A New Account of Tales of the World). As a young man, Zhou Chu of Yixing was so violent that local people counted him among the district's "three scourges," along with a tiger in the southern hills and a jiao under the long bridge. Zhou killed the tiger, then dived into the river after the jiao. He fought it for three days and nights as it drifted dozens of li downstream. Believing both were dead, the villagers celebrated. When Zhou came home and saw their joy, he realized how much he was hated, and he resolved to change his life. He later became a respected official.

Legacy

An old explanation of the Dragon Boat Festival says that offerings of rice thrown into the river for the poet Qu Yuan were being stolen by a jiaolong, so people wrapped the rice in chinaberry leaves tied with five-colored silk, which the jiao feared. That is one story told about the origin of zongzi. Today Jiaolong is also the name of China's deep-sea crewed submersible, which dived more than 7,000 meters into the Mariana Trench in 2012. For more, see our page on Chinese dragons.

Related

• Lóng (Chinese dragon): The lóng is the Chinese dragon: a long, scaly, usually wingless creature with four clawed legs that rules rain, rivers, and seas and became the emblem of the emperor and of Chinese culture.
• Mizuchi: A mizuchi is a Japanese water dragon or river serpent, a spirit of rivers and pools that could bring rain or spit poison, best known from the Nihon Shoki tale of Agatamori, who killed one with gourds and a sword.
• Imugi: The imugi is a great serpent of Korean folklore that has not yet become a true dragon and must live a thousand years, or catch a wish-granting jewel fallen from heaven, before it can ascend as a yong.
• Panlong: The panlong, or "coiled dragon," is a Chinese dragon that lies curled up on earth or in water and has not yet ascended to heaven, a favorite motif on bronzes, pillars, and roof beams.
• Dragon Kings (Longwang): The Dragon Kings are the dragon rulers of the seas, rivers, and lakes in Chinese religion and folklore, rain-giving lords who live in crystal palaces, take human form, and answer to the Jade Emperor.
• Dragon Species
• Chinese Dragons

Sources and Further Reading

• M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1913)
• Liu I-ch'ing, Shih-shuo Hsin-yü: A New Account of Tales of the World, trans. Richard B. Mather (University of Minnesota Press, 1976; 2nd ed. University of Michigan, 2002)
• Anne Birrell, trans., The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Penguin Classics, 1999)
• Roel Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2002)

Cite this entry: “Jiaolong,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/jiaolong.