IncenseRice wineFruitTeaA paper boatThe first fishA rain prayer at the well
Invocation Approach
Tone
Courtly cautious negotiating
Address
LongwangDragon KingLord of the RainAo Guang
Relationship
A villager before the official who controls the water
Warning
The rain is issued on a quota and the dragon who falsifies it is executed
Resonance
Farmers sailors those who dig a well those in drought
Symbols
The dragon throneThe rain registerThe pearlThe water courseThe four seasThe dragon gate
Mythology Summary
The Dragon King is the Chinese sovereign of a body of water — a sea, a river, a lake, a well — and the four seas have four kings: Ao Guang of the east, Ao Qin of the south, Ao Run of the west and Ao Shun of the north, named in the Ming novel Xiyou ji and in the earlier popular scriptures. He gives rain on the warrant of heaven, and a dragon who fails the rainfall quota is punished: in Xiyou ji the Dragon King of the Jing River is beheaded for falsifying the rain. The state conferred aristocratic titles on dragon kings from the Tang onward, and local dragon kings multiplied at every spring and well, so that the Dragon King is a class of gods rather than one, approached in drought and before a voyage.
Modern Practice
The practice is local and practical: incense, wine, fruit and tea at a spring, a well or a harbour, a paper boat, the first fish, and the rain prayer in drought. The offering is made to the water that is actually there — the well in the yard, the river at the edge of the town — not to an abstract sea.