Jimeng
Mythological Narrative
Mount Guang carries green jasper above and abundant waters below. The god Jimeng dwells there: a human body crowned with a dragon's head. He spends his days swimming the deep pools of the Zhang River, and every entry and exit is attended by whirlwinds and violent rain.
In Warring States and Han thought the dragon is the rain-bringer, and the dragon-headed Jimeng has accordingly been read as an early god of wind and rain. His range, the Jing mountains threaded by the Zhang and Ju rivers, lies in the heartland of ancient Chu.
Gods whose passage shows a sign cluster throughout the central mountains: Taifeng and Yu'er come and go in light, Gengfu rises glowing from the Qingling pool, and the two daughters of the supreme god on Mount Dongting move, like Jimeng, in gale and storm. A god's crossing never goes unmarked; light and tempest are the two liveries these gods travel under.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Jimeng.
You Might Also Like
The Two Daughters of the Supreme God
Two goddesses of Mount Dongting who range the Yangtze deeps; their every passage raises whirlwind and storm. Later tradition merged them with Ehuang and Nüying, consorts of Shun and spirits of the Xiang.
Taifeng
The auspicious god of Mount He, human in form with a tiger's tail, moving in light and able to stir the qi of heaven and earth — blamed by commentators for the storm that once bewildered King Kongjia of Xia.
Yu'er
Spirit of Mount Fufu, human in form with two snakes held about his body, who ranges the deep pools of the Yangtze and comes and goes wrapped in light.
Kui
An ox-like beast with one leg on an island mountain in the Eastern Sea — grey-bodied, hornless, glowing like sun and moon, roaring like thunder. The Yellow Emperor made its hide into a drum heard five hundred li away.