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With claws turned sideways and a muscular tail winding around its extended leg, this majestic dragon strides haughtily, mouth open in pursuit of a jewel. This dramatic pose does not appear before the Tang dynasty, which immediately preceded the brief Five Dynasties era. Long associated with good things for agriculture, including the water of wells, springs, rivers, and rain, by the Tang dynasty dragons had also come to symbolize the emperor.

Carved in relief from a large block of stone, this splendid creature is architectural in scale. Traces of the original pigments are still visible: gold on the eye, red in the mouth, and blue on the body. In China, the blue dragon is associated with the east, which suggests this slab may have come from the east wall of a tomb.

Transverse grooves on the underside of the dragon's upper lip reveal an influence that arrived with Buddhism, specifically, from the depiction of a mythical Indian aquatic animal called a makara. The orblike disk with sinuous projections in front of the dragon is a motif that first appeared in the Five Dynasties period and became practically ubiquitous in later art, especially on ceramics and textiles.

Our Western dragons represent greed. However, the Chinese dragon is different. It represents the vitality of the swamps. . . . That's a lovely kind of dragon, one that yields the bounty of the waters, a great glorious gift.
-Folklorist Joseph Campbell, 1988