Shenlong

Shenlong, the "spiritual" or "divine" dragon, is the Chinese dragon that raises clouds and sends wind and rain for the good of people, one of four classes of dragons in a scheme of Buddhist origin.

What the Name Means

Shen means "spirit" or "divine," so shenlong is simply "divine dragon." Chinese writers used the phrase loosely for centuries to praise any dragon as a spiritual being. The ancient book Guanzi, for example, explains that a dragon counts as a shen, a god, because it can transform itself and rise or sink whenever it wishes.

In Western books, though, Shenlong usually means one specific class of dragon: the one in charge of wind and rain.

One of Four Classes

The idea comes from Buddhism. Buddhist teachers who brought Indian nāga lore to China translated nāga as lóng, and Mahayana writers divided the nāgas into four groups. The Dutch scholar M. W. de Visser, writing in 1913, found the list in a Ming dynasty Chinese encyclopedia and a Japanese Buddhist dictionary:

• Heavenly dragons (tianlong), who guard and hold up the palaces of heaven.
• Divine dragons (shenlong), who make the clouds rise and the rain fall for the benefit of humankind.
• Earthly dragons (dilong), who clear rivers and open outlets for water.
• Hidden dragons (fucanglong), who guard buried treasure.

English readers met the same list earlier through the American scholar Cyrus Adler, whose 1888 report for the U.S. National Museum described four kinds of Chinese dragons. Ernest Ingersoll repeated it in Dragons and Dragon Lore (1928), and from there it passed into countless popular books and games.

The Rain Dragon of the People

Ingersoll called the shenlong the dragon "of the common people," because farmers depended on it. In times of drought, Chinese villages carried dragon images in procession and prayed at dragon temples for rain, a custom far older than the four-class scheme itself. Rain rituals using clay dragons are described as early as the Han dynasty.

Legacy

The name is best known worldwide today through Shenron, the wish-granting dragon of the Dragon Ball manga and anime, whose name is the Japanese reading of the same characters. That character is a modern invention and owes little to the rain dragon of Chinese folk religion. For the larger picture, see our page on Chinese dragons.

Related

• Tianlong: Tianlong, the "celestial" or "heavenly" dragon, is the Chinese dragon said to guard the palaces of the gods and hold them up so they do not fall, the highest of four classes of dragons in a scheme of Buddhist origin.
• Dilong: Dilong, the "earth dragon," is the Chinese dragon said to mark out and clear the courses of rivers and streams, the third of four classes of dragons in a scheme of Buddhist origin.
• Fucanglong: Fucanglong, the "dragon of hidden treasures," is the Chinese dragon said to lie hidden underground guarding buried wealth, the fourth of four classes of dragons in a scheme of Buddhist origin.
• 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.
• Shenron: Shenron is the Eternal Dragon of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga (1984) and anime, a vast green Eastern-style dragon who appears when all seven Dragon Balls are gathered and grants a wish.
• Chinese Dragons
• Dragon Types

Sources and Further Reading

• M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam: Johannes Müller, 1913)
• Ernest Ingersoll, Dragons and Dragon Lore (New York: Payson & Clarke, 1928)
• Roel Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China (State University of New York Press, 2002)

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