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Mythos Atlas

Chinese PantheonCreature

Qinglong

Illustration of Qinglong, a creature of the Chinese Pantheon
Illustrative imageIllustration of Qinglong. Generated with an AI image model; not a historical artifact. About our images
  • Weather Command
  • Directional Guardianship
  • Wood Element

The Azure Dragon of the East, one of the Four Symbols guarding the cardinal directions. Associated with spring, wood, and the rising sun.

About Qinglong

Azure Dragon of the East

Qinglong is one of the Four Symbols (Siling): east, spring, wood, the mansions of the Azure Dragon. The form is astronomical and directional before it is a novelistic dragon. Han tomb ceilings and the Huainanzi-style correlative cosmos fix the set with White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.

It commands weather as a quadrant guardian, not as a village pest.

One of four, and the lunar mansions

The Azure Dragon's constellation is built from seven of the twenty-eight lunar mansions (xiu) of the eastern sky, including Horn (Jiao) and Heart (Xin). The four directional animals appear together on Han roof-tiles and on the walls of Goguryeo tombs in Korea and the Kitora and Takamatsuzuka tombs in Japan, showing how far the system spread through East Asia.

Quick answers about Qinglong

What is Qinglong?
The Azure Dragon of the East, one of the Four Symbols guarding the cardinal directions. Associated with spring, wood, and the rising sun.
Where does Qinglong live?
The atlas lists Qinglong's habitat as Eastern skies and dragon wells.
What abilities does Qinglong have?
The atlas lists these abilities for Qinglong: Weather Command, Directional Guardianship, and Wood Element.

Sources and further reading

Source notes

These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.

  • Han Four Symbols cosmology (tomb art; Huainanzi tradition)

    Catalog date: c. 2nd century BCE–2nd century CE

About this entry

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. . Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

The danger rating is an editorial shorthand for how the myths portray the creature, not a claim made by the sources.

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