Tenryu-ji. Norris Brock Johnson
and the waves struck violently at the bank, although there was no wind. This agreed so strikingly with his dream that he did not proceed upon his way. So Go-Daigo returned to the Palace, and Saionji was banished to Izumo, which he never reached because he was killed on the road.”37 Lore and legend thus linked emperors to dragons. Dragons safeguarded emperors.
Emperor Jinmu (ca. 771–585 B.C.), the first emperor of Japan, was believed to be the grandson of the daughter of a kami of the sea—manifested in the guise of a dragon. The Record of Ancient Matters declares that “In the august reign of the Heavenly Sovereign who governed the Eight Great Islands from the Great Plain of Kiyomihara at Asuka, the Hidden Dragon [Jinmu Tennō] put on perfection, the Reiterated Thunder came at the appointed moment [of emperorship in 660 B.C.].”38 Emperor Ōjin (270–310) was said to have a dragon’s tail extending from his body, which he carefully kept hidden. A dragon was sighted at the beginning of the reign of Emperor Go-Uda (1267–1324).
And so, the spirit of Emperor Go-Daigo became synonymous with a dragon. The emerging temple was linked to Go-Daigo such that the complex demonstrably was a dragon temple.
Tadayoshi had been under the counsel of Musō, and their conversations on Zen Buddhism and on the recent civil war were recorded as Dream Conversations (Muchū Mondōshū).39 Like his brother Takauji, Tadayoshi felt abiding remorse with his own duplicit behavior toward the deceased Emperor Go-Daigo. At one point in their conversations, Musō underscored Tadayoshi’s connection to the emerging temple complex: “You are now respected by all of the people because of the good things you have done in your former life,” Musō tells Tadayoshi, “but you also have enemies … think about all the enemies you killed and all the soldiers who died fighting with you. Think about all their families and numerous descendants. If you honor their memories, you will comfort many people.”40 And the way to further honor memories of the dead as well as comfort the living was through the engagement of Tadayoshi in the birth of the emerging Buddhist temple complex.
In the dream of Tadayoshi, a mighty dragon of gold and silver rose from the waters of the Ōi River skirting the Mountain of Storms. Instead of flying off into the sky, the dragon glided into the garden pond of the old imperial villa at Turtle Mountain. The dragon living in the dream of Tadayoshi made its presence known during the genesis of the new temple complex. In the dream, the dragon surfaced within an area near a river and human-made pond of prior religious significance.
River dragons were believed to dwell within treasure-laden palaces (ryūgū) beneath the water, and veneration of the deities of the sea and rivers in time became associated with veneration of dragons. “Dragons were kami gods who lived in rivers and seas, valleys and mountains [in rivulets, lakes, and ponds].”41 A dragon rising from water became associated with rain, literal generativity.42 The rising of a dragon initiated a cycle of ascent and descent associated with what we would term the vast hydrologic cycle of nature itself—water rising in mist from the earth only to fall again, as rain. Witnessing a dragon rising from a river, even in the life of a dream, was an omen of emerging beneficence (fig. 37).
In the dream of Tadayoshi, a dragon rose from the river to fly off into the sky. Flying dragons were recorded as early as the sixth century. According to the Chronicles of Japan (Nihongi), at the beginning of the rein of Empress Saimei (ruled 655–61) a dragon appeared in the sky above the western peaks of the Katsuragi Mountains.43 The Katsuragi Mountains were the site of an early Buddhist complex (The High Temple of Katsuragi), and the subsequent sighting of dragons in the sky became associated with the appearance of Buddhism in Japan.
The snake-like form of the dragon in Japan is related to Nāga, the water-serpent deities of India. Nāga were believed to live on Mount Meru, the mythic mountain around which creation had formed. Nāga lived within golden palaces vibrating with ethereal music, ambrosia, and wish-fulfilling jewels and flowers. Nāga lived surrounded by a garden with “the dragon-haunted tree at its center being hung with jewels in which the life of the Golden Embryō is hidden.”44 Through Nāga, dragons in Japan came to be associated with gardens as well as with Buddhism.
FIGURE 37. “Dragons and Clouds.” Detail of a six-panel folding screen, by Tawaraya Sotatsu (ca. 1600–1643). 1630, ink on paper, 171.5 × 374.6 cm.
Early Buddhism conceived of Nāga as the guardians of Buddha. Indeed, Buddha was believed to have been incarnated as a Nāga king before incarnation as Siddhārtha Gautama. He was “bathed, as soon as born, by the Nāga king and queen, who later created a lotus leaf on which he might reveal himself.”45 Legend has it that, after his awareness of Buddha-Mind while sitting under the Bodhi tree, Shākyamuni traveled to Lake Mucilinda where he sat in meditation for seven days. Mucilinda, the seven-headed Nāga after whom the lake was named, “saw the Buddha’s light and rose to the surface, where he was so delighted that he caused it to rain for the whole seven days and protected the sage by curling his seven hoods, or heads, over him.”46 Disciples of Buddha subsequently “converted them to the faith and indeed made them its guardians.”47 The promise of the Nāga was that “until the dawn when Maitreya [“The Loving One,” a Buddhist deity embodying all-encompassing love] comes to preach the three sermons under the dragon flower tree, even so long I will guard this land and govern the workings of Buddhist law.”48 The hooded cobra-like visage of a Nāga/dragon sheltering and protecting Buddha remains a common, dramatic image (fig. 38).
FIGURE 38. “Buddha Protected by Naga.” Ninth century A.D., sandstone, 111 × 52 × 29 cm. Cambodia.
With respect to the association of dragons with Buddha and Buddhism, it was not uncommon for the name of a Buddhist temple to be “called after a dragon which was said to live there or to have appeared at the time the temple was built.”49 The sighting of a dragon in association with the consecration of a Buddhist temple, again, was considered a favorable omen. In 596, a Buddhist temple in Nara was being dedicated when a “purple cloud descended from the sky and covered the pagoda as well as the Buddha Hall; then the cloud … assumed the shape of a dragon … After awhile it vanished in a westerly direction.”50 In 1697, a Buddhist temple in Mino Province was being dedicated when “a dragon appeared with a pearl in its mouth, a very good sign indeed.”51 Until quite recently, people continued not only to believe in dragons but also to experience dragons. In the dream of Tadayoshi, therefore, it was a harbinger of good fortune that a dragon had descended into the old villa of Go-Saga, also associated with Emperor Go-Daigo.
The extent to which people deferred to dreams in renaming the emerging temple complex further reveals the power and influence of belief in the animistic reality of dream.52 The naming of the emerging complex accommodated long-standing belief in the beneficent appearance of dragons in association with commemoration of Buddhist temples as well as with the conception of dragons as the guardians of both Buddha and Buddhism.
Dragons and dreams were influential animistic presences in the final naming of temple. Dreams and dragons were fortuitous omens of the favored future life and significance of the temple.
Construction of the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon began in late 1339, initially with the labor of one master carpenter and twelve assistants. Six years, though, were required for completion of the complex. We will meet dragons again as a vital aspect of the ongoing life of the temple.
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