DRAGONS AND THE POWERS OF THE EARTH
a The dragon and the elements
are associated with the fertilisation of the earth
Their absence and re-emergence according to the
Equally at home on land and sea, the dragon is
cycle of the seasons (during the dormant season
associated with remote places and phenomena of
it hibernated in the ground)4 may also be seen as
the natural world Its aquatic nature is profoundly
a metamorphosis
ambivalent: as water dweller it can be both benev-
In the Rigvedic pantheon a primordial “serpent
olent guardian and malevolent destroyer In its
of the deep,” Ahi Budhnyà, is known;5 the Vedic
threatening manifestation the creature is linked to
áhi- meaning “serpent, snake,” while budhnyà-
adverse climatological phenomena such as thun-
is an adjectival derivative of budhnàs “bottom,
der, rain, lightning or earthquakes
base ” The origin and abode of the “dragon of
The symbolic complexity of the dragon is thus
the deep” is the dark bottom of heavenly waters,
expressed through its ability to cross boundaries
he is “sitting in the depth of rivers” (budhne
within the natural environment it inhabits The
nadīnāṃ rajaḥsu sīdan) 6 In the Rigveda (dating
distinction between land- and sea-beast is often
from 1500–1000 bc) budhnàs is used of the root
blurred That the dragon or the large serpent can
(in heaven) of the cosmological Nyagrodha tree
be both aquatic and terrestrial was noted in the
(1 24 7),7 hence associating the serpent with a
fifth-century Armenian theological writings of
tree 8 In later Indian literature water is known
Eznik of Koghb 1 According to the texts of the
as the abode of serpent demons 9 Apart from the
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Brethren of Purity, established
aquatic monster Gandarəβa who lives in Lake
c 373/983), the likeness, character and manner of
Vārukasha (original y perhaps denoting a specific
the dragon is like the sea serpent 2 Both aquatic
location such as Lake Aral or the Caspian Sea), the
and terrestrial, the dragon, like its close cousin
Iranian Zoroastrian dragons were terrestrial crea-
the amphibian serpent, is thus characterised
tures, “inhabitants of this world,” and the con-
by a wet-dry dichotomy as noted by the four-
nection with water is less evident in Zoroastrian
teenth-century scholar Kamāl al-Dīn al-Damīrī
literature, with the exception of some references
in his Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā 3 They dwel not
to river-dwelling dragons 10 yet in almost all of
only in springs, wells, rivers, lakes or sea water,
the stories in Iranian literature, the dragon’s lair
but also in mountains, forests, caverns, caves,
is close to either a source of water or the sea,11
crevices and other subterranean enclosures, hence
for instance, the dragon-fighter Garshāsp in the
lending themselves to association with the under-
Garshāsp-nāma kil s a dragon which had emerged
world and chthonic forces In tunnelling into the
from the sea and made its abode on Mount
earth and resurfacing again above ground, they
Shekāwand, while Sām in the Shāh-nāma 12 slays
1
5
Elc alandocʿ, tr and ed Mariès and Mercier, 1959,
Oldenberg, 1894, repr 1977, pp 71–2; Watkins, 1995,
pp 593–4, ch 133
pp 460–2
2
6
Tr and ed Dieterici, 1858, pp 114–6
Grassmann, 1873, repr 1976, cols 909–10 Cf Watkins,
3 Tr Jayakar, 1906, vol 1, p 636 See p 5
1995, pp 460–2
4
7
This observation is recorded by al-Bīrūnī in his Kitāb
Watkins, 1995, p 460
8
al-Āthār al-Bāqiya (“The Chronology of Ancient Nations”)
After he was killed by Indra, the Rigvedic hymns (1 32 5)
(tr and ed Sachau, 1876–8, p 248) in which he states that
state the following about the dragon Vṛtra: “As trunks of
during the cold season he himself found that:
trees, what time the axe hath felled them, low on the earth so
lies the prostrate dragon” (tr Hotchkin Griffith, 1889, p 20)
in Khwārizm, they gather in the interior of the earth
9 Oldenberg, 1894, repr 1977, p 71; Vogel, 1926, pp 32–
and roll themselves up one round the other so that the
33, 115–6, 209, 244; Bosch, 1960, pp 33–4, 51–3, 136–7
greatest part of them is visible, and they look like a
10 Boyce, 1975, repr 1996, pp 90–1
ball In this condition they remain during the winter
11 Cf Khāleqī-Moṭlaq, “Aždahā II,” EIr
until this time
12 Tr and ed Mohl, 1838–1878, vol 1, p 309,
52