The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain, commanding over all bodies of water. He is the collective personification of the ancient concept of the lóng in Chinese culture. There are also the cosmological “Dragon Kings of the Four Seas” (四海龍王; Sihai Longwang). Besides being a water deity, the Dragon God frequently also serves as a territorial tutelary deity, similarly to Tudigong “Lord of the Earth” and Houtu “Queen of the Earth”.
First Appearance Huainanzi and Shuijing Zhu (206 BCE–220 CE)
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Huainanzi and Shuijing Zhu (Commentary on the Water Classic) describe dragon spirits ruling rivers and seas (206 BCE–220 CE), Dragon Kings (usually Four Dragon Kings, 四海龍王, ruling the seas in the cardinal directions) became standard deities, Buddhist sutras and temple iconography (618–907), short stories and bianwen texts (8th–9th centuries), folk tales, Daoist texts, and plays as rulers of watery domains (10th–14th centuries), Fengshen Yanyi (封神演義, Investiture of the Gods, c. 16th century)
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Description The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain, commanding over all bodies of water. He is the collective personification of the ancient concept of the lóng in Chinese culture. There are also the cosmological “Dragon Kings of the Four Seas” (四海龍王; Sihai Longwang). Besides being a water deity, the Dragon God frequently also serves as a territorial tutelary deity, similarly to Tudigong “Lord of the Earth” and Houtu “Queen of the Earth”.
