When the Chinese “Dragon Mother” died, she was buried on the eastern side of the river. Why, it may [[60]]be asked, on the eastern side? Was it because, being originally a goddess, she was regarded as the “mother” of the sun-god of the east—the mother who was “the mountain of dawn” and whose influence was concentrated in the blue stone? The Chinese dragon of the east is blue, and the blue dragon is associated with spring—the first-born season of the year. But apparently the dragons objected to the burial of the “Dragon Mother” on the eastern bank. The legend tells that they raised a violent storm, and transferred her grave to the western bank. Until the present age the belief obtains that there is always wind and rain near the “Dragon Mother’s Grave”. The people explain that the dragons love to “wash the grave”.
Here we find the dragons pouring out libations, as did the worshippers of the Great Mother who came from a distant land.
The god of the western quarter is white, and presides over the autumn season of fruitfulness. Just before the “birth” of autumn the Chinese address their prayers to the mountains and hills.
In ancient Egypt the conflict between the Solar and Osirian cults was a conflict between the “cult of the east” and the “cult of the west”. Professor Breasted notes that although Osiris is “First of the Westerners” (the west being his quarter) “he goes to the east (after death) in the Pyramid texts (of the solar cult) and the pair, Isis and Nepthys (the goddess), carry the dead into the east”. The east was the place where the ascent to the sky was made. In Egyptian solar theology it combined with the south. The rivalry between the two cults is reflected in one particular Pyramid text in which “the dead is adjured to go to the west in preference to the east, in order to join the sun-god!” But to the solar cult the [[61]]east was “the most sacred of all regions”. In the Pyramid texts it is found that “the old doctrine of the ‘west’ as the permanent realm of the dead, a doctrine which is later so prominent, has been quite submerged by the pre-eminence of the east”.[33]
This east-and-west theological war, then, had its origin in Egypt. How did it reach China, there to be enshrined in the legend of the Dragon Mother? Can it be held that it was “natural” the Chinese should have invented a legend which had so significant and ancient a history in the homeland of the earliest seafarers?
The dragon-gods that presided over the seasons and the divisions of the world were five in number. At the east was the blue (or green) god associated with spring, at the west the white god associated with autumn, at the north the black god associated with winter (the Chinese season of drought), and at the south were two gods, the red and the yellow; the red god presided during the greater part of summer, the rule of the yellow god being confined to the last month.
The dragons were life-givers not only as the gods who presided over the seasons and ensured the food-supply, but as those who gave cures for diseases. The “Red Cloud herb” and other curative herbs were found after a thunderstorm beside the dragon-haunted pools. De Groot[34] tells that fossil bones were called “dragon bones”, and were used for medicinal purposes. The dragons were supposed to cast off their bones as well as their skins. Bones of five colours (the colours of the five dragons) were regarded as the most effective. White and yellow bones came next in favour. Black bones were “of inferior quality”. The Shu King, a famous Chinese [[62]]historical classic,[35] tells that the dragons’ bones come from Tsin land. It is noted that the five-coloured ones are the best. The blue, yellow, red, white, and black ones, according to their colours, correspond with the viscera, as do the five chih (felicitous plants), the five crystals (shih ying), and the five kinds of mineral bole (shih chi). De Groot[36] gives the colours connected with the internal organs as follows:
- 1. Blue—liver and gall.
- 2. White—lungs and small intestines.
- 3. Red—heart and large intestines.
- 4. Black—kidneys and bladder.
- 5. Yellow—spleen and stomach.
Apparently the special curative quality of a dragon’s bone was revealed by its colour. The gods of the various “mansions” influenced different organs of the human body.
In ancient Egypt the internal organs were placed in jars and protected by the Horuses of the cardinal points. The god of the north had charge of the small viscera, the god of the south of the stomach and large intestines, the god of the west of liver and gall, and the god of the east of heart and lungs. The Egyptian north was red and symbolized by the Red Crown, and the south was white and symbolized by the White Crown.