How the dragon came to be in ancient China

Most modern scholars believe that the dragon totem evolved from other animal totems. An early and widely-represented theory is that the snake evolved into the dragon, and we naturally became "descendants of the dragon".

But in reality, the idea of the heir to the dragon didn't gain popularity until after the May Fourth Movement.

Recently, it has been popularized as originating from the Yellow Emperor's Busan Hapu. Records of the Historical Records of the Five Emperors, "recorded: the Yellow Emperor in the defeat of the Yan Emperor and Chi You, touring the four sides, "Busan". This "together", not only unified the various military orders of the letter, established a political alliance, but also from the original tribes of the totem on each part of the elements combined to create a new animal image - dragon.

From then on, all the tribes in the Central Plains had the same dragon totem, and the history of the unified Chinese civilization began, thus the Chinese people are all "descendants of the dragon".

Expanded Information

In China, the dragon has gone through four major stages of development: the stage of totem worship, the stage of deity worship, the stage of the combination of the worship of the dragon god and the worship of emperors, the stage of the combination of the worship of the Buddhist Naga dragon and the worship of the Chinese dragon.

In the stage of totem worship, certain tribes in ancient China regarded the dragon as a totem, as the ancestor and symbol of their tribes. According to historical documents and related legends, the dragon (originally in the form of a snake) was originally the totem of the Fuxi clan, and later became the totem of the Taijian (Taihao) tribe. The Taihao tribe is one of the most important origins of dragon totem worship.

At the stage of deity worship, agriculture and animal husbandry were gradually formed, and religious beliefs were also developed, transitioning from a relatively single totem worship to multi-god worship. Dragon totem worship also developed into dragon god worship. People deify the dragon, serving the dragon as the god of water and rainbow.

Finally, it is the stage of the combination of Buddhist Naga dragon worship and Chinese dragon worship. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, Buddhism spread rapidly in China, and the Buddhist cult of the dragon king was introduced into China. In China's native dragon worship, there was originally only the cult of the dragon god, not the cult of the dragon king, which was introduced after the introduction of Buddhism. With the spread of Buddhism, dragon king, dragon palace, dragon lady, etc. were also rapidly circulated.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Dragon