Dragon lady in Chinese beliefs and literary descriptions

The paper covers the genesis of beliefs in “Dragon Lady” - the daughter of the Dragon King (Long Wang) in Chinese orthodox and folksy religions. This genesis can be traced by the analysis of classical sutras (such as “The Lotus Sutra”) as well as secular writings starting from Tang period. “Dragon Lady” or “Dragon’s Daughter”, emerging from the mainstream Buddhist Mahayana concepts in time has transformed into an independent and very special object of ritual, comprising Buddhist, Taoist and folksy features in a great variety of forms. The main plots of secular writings about “Dragon Lady” are stories of her marriage with a human and unparalleled luck it brings to the chosen one. The tradition of these stories date back to Tang period, bit their variations can be found in later writings up to Qing literary heritage. “Dragon Lady” has a very strict iconographic tradition associated with worship of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guan-yin) but lacks a special Taoist or Folksy iconography. This may be caused by the common principle in all religious forms of “Dragon Lady”, giving a way of worshiping all embodiments of the deity in its orthodox Buddhist presentation: this character personifies the faith in a beneficial transformation and in an unexpected happiness.