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Yinglong

Yinglong () is a winged dragon and rain deity in ancient Chinese mythology. This legendary creature's name combines yìng 應 "respond; correspond; answer; reply; agree; comply; consent; promise; adapt; apply" and lóng 龍 "Chinese dragon". Although the former character is also pronounced (with a different tone) yīng 應 "should; ought to; need to; proper; suitable", yinglong 應龍 definitively means "responsive dragon; responding dragon" and not "proper dragon". The Chinese classics frequently mention yinglong 應龍 "a winged rain-dragon" in myths about the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, especially the Yellow Emperor and his alleged descendant King Yu. The examples below, limited to books with English translations, are roughly arranged in chronological order, although some heterogeneous texts have uncertain dates of composition. Chu Ci The (3rd–2nd centuries BCE) Chu Ci "Songs of Chu" mentions Yinglong helping King Yu 禹, the legendary founder of the Xia dynasty, to control the mythic Great Deluge. According to Chinese mythology, Emperor Yao 堯 assigned Yu's father Gun 鯀, who was supposedly a descendant of the Yellow Emperor, to control massive flooding, but he failed. Yao's successor, Emperor Shun 舜, had Gun executed and his body exposed, but when Gun's corpse did not decompose, it was cut open and Yu was born by parthenogenesis. Shun appointed Yu to control the floods, and after succeeding through diligently constructing canals, Yu divided ancient China into the Nine Provinces. The Heavenly Questions section (3, 天問) asks about Yinglong, in context with Zhulong 燭龍 "Torch Dragon". Tianwen, which Hawkes 1985:38, 126) characterizes as "a shamanistic catechism consisting of questions about cosmological, astronomical, mythological and historical matters", and "is written in an archaic language to be found nowhere else in the Chu anthology" excepting "one or two short passages" in the Li Sao section. When Lord Gun brought forth Yu from his belly, how was he transformed? Yu inherited the same tradition and carried on the work of his father.

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Related concepts (13)
Hong (rainbow-dragon)
Hong or jiang () is a two-headed dragon in Chinese mythology, comparable with rainbow serpent legends in various cultures and mythologies. Chinese has three "rainbow" words, regular hong 虹, literary didong 蝃蝀, and ni 蜺 "secondary rainbow". Note that all these Chinese characters share a graphic element of hui "insect; worm; reptile; etc." (cf. tripled chong ), known in Chinese as Kangxi radical number 142 and loosely translated in English as the "insect radical".
Tianlong
Tianlong (; lit. "heavenly dragon") is a flying dragon in Chinese mythology, a star in Chinese astrology, and a proper name. The term tianlong combines tian "heaven" and long "dragon". Since tian literally means "heaven; the heavens; sky" or figuratively "Heaven; God; gods", tianlong can denote "heavenly dragon; celestial dragon" or "holy dragon; divine dragon". Tianlong 天龍 is homophonous with another name in Chinese folklore.
Chu Ci
The Chu ci, variously translated as Verses of Chu, Songs of Chu, or Elegies of Chu, is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry including works traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan and Song Yu from the Warring States period (ended 221 BC), and also a large number of works composed several centuries later, during the Han dynasty. The traditional version of the Chu ci contains 17 major sections, anthologized with its current contents by Wang Yi, a 2nd-century AD librarian who served under Emperor Shun of Han.
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