Japanese dragon

"In the oldest annals the dragons are mentioned in various ways," explains de Visser,[3] "but mostly as water-gods, serpent- or dragon-shaped."

Some authors attempt to differentiate Japanese ryū and Chinese long dragons by the number of claws on their feet.

In 1886 Charles Gould wrote that in Japan the dragon is "invariably figured as possessing three claws, whereas in China it has four or five, according to whether it is an ordinary or an Imperial emblem".

Moreover, many originally Japanese dragons, to which Chinese legends were applied, were afterwards identified with nāga, so that a blending of ideas was the result.

De Visser[8] lists accounts for Shitennō-ji in Osaka, Gogen Temple in Hakone, Kanagawa, and the shrine on Mount Haku where the Genpei Jōsuiki records that a Zen priest saw a nine-headed dragon transform into the goddess Kannon.

In the present day, the Lake Saiko Dragon Shrine at Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi has an annual festival and fireworks show.

The Golden Dragon Dance was produced to celebrate the reconstruction of the Main Hall of the temple in 1958 and is performed twice yearly.

According to the Gukanshō and The Tale of Heike (Heinrich 1997:74–75), the sea-dragon empowered Emperor Antoku to ascend the throne because his father Taira no Kiyomori offered prayers at Itsukushima and declared it his ancestral shrine.

When Antoku drowned himself after being defeated in the 1185 Battle of Dan-no-ura, he lost the imperial Kusanagi sword (which legendarily came from the tail of the Yamata no Orochi] dragon) back into the sea.