Қытай мифологиясындағы Жяолун аңызы

Dragon in Chinese mythology

Jiaolong or jiao (chiao, kiao) is a dragon in Chinese mythology, often defined as a "scaled dragon"; it is hornless according to certain scholars and said to be aquatic or river dwelling. It may have referred to a species of crocodile. A number of scholars point to non Sinitic southern origins for the legendary creature and ancient texts chronicle that the Yue people once tattooed their bodies to ward against these monsters. In English translations, jiao has been variously rendered as "jiao dragon", "crocodile", "flood dragon", "scaly dragon", or even "kraken".

The jiao lang=zh character combines the "insect radical" lang=zh, to provide general sense of insects, reptiles or dragons, etc., and the right radical jiao lang=zh "cross; mix", etc. which supplies the phonetic element "jiao". The original 交 pictograph represented a person with crossed legs. The Japanese equivalent term is kōryō or kōryū (蛟竜). The Vietnamese equivalent is giao long, considered synonymous to Vietnamese Thuồng luồng.

The Piya dictionary (11th century) claims that its common name was maban .

In textual usage, it may be ambiguous whether jiaolong 蛟龍 should be parsed as two kinds of dragons or one, as Prof. Zhang Jing (known in Japan as Chō Kyō [ja; 張競]) comments: "It is difficult to determine whether jiaolong is the name of a type of dragon, or [two dragons] "jiao" and "long" juxtaposed 蛟龍はそもそも龍の一種の名称なのか、それとも「蛟」と「龍」からなる複合なのかは判断しにくい。. Zhang cites as one example of jiaolong used in the poem Li Sao (in Chu Ci), in which the poet is instructed by supernatural beings to beckon the jialong and bid them build a bridge. Visser translated this as one type of dragon, the jiaolong or kiao lung. However, it was the verdict of Wang Yi, an early commentator of this poem that these were two kinds, the smaller jiao and the larger long.

Since the Chinese word for the generic dragon is long (龍), translating jiao as "dragon" is problematic as it would make it impossible to distinguish which of the two is being referred to. The term jiao has thus been translated as "flood dragon" (See §Identification as real fauna).

Several texts allude to the jiao being the lord of aquatic beings. The jiaolong is called the "god of the water animals". Refn|Commentary to Guanzi;

Jiao and jiaolong were names for a legendary river dragon. Jiao 蛟 is sometimes translated as "flood dragon". The (c. 1105 CE) Yuhu qinghua 玉壺清話 Carr says people in the southern state of Wu called it fahong 發洪 "swell into a flood" because they believed flooding resulted when jiao hatched. The poem Qijian ("Seven Remonstrances") in the Chu Ci uses the term shuijiao 水蛟 or water jiao.

The Shuowen Jiezi does not commit to whether the jiāo 蛟 has or lacks a horn. The Shiyiji 拾遺記 (4th century CE) has a jiao story about Emperor Zhao of Han (r. 87 74 BCE). While fishing in the Wei River, he
caught a white kiao, three chang [ten meters] long, which resembled a big snake, but had no scaly armour The Emperor said: 'This is not a lucky omen', and ordered the Ta kwan to make a condiment of it. Its flesh was purple, its bones were blue, and its taste was very savoury and pleasant. Three classical texts (Liji 6, Huainanzi 5, and Lüshi Chunqiu 6) repeat a sentence about capturing water creatures at the end of summer; 伐蛟取鼉登龜取黿 "attack the jiao 蛟, take the to 鼉 "alligator", present the gui 龜 "tortoise", and take the yuan 黿 "soft shell turtle"."

There is a legend surrounding the Dragon Boat Festival which purports to be the origin behind the offering of zongzi (leaf wrapped rice cakes) to the drowned nobleman Qu Yuan during its observation. It is said that at the beginning of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 A. D.), a man from Changsha named Ou Hui had a vision in a dream of Qu Yuan instructing him that the naked rice cakes being offered for him in the river are all being eaten by the dragons (jiaolong), and the cakes need to be wrapped in chinaberry (Melia; ) leaves and tied with color strings, which are two things the dragons abhor.