The Semiotics of the Ryū: Japanese Dragons in Religion, Folklore, and Budō Philosophy

The Semiotics of the Ryū: Japanese Dragons in Religion, Folklore, and Budō Philosophy
Introduction
The Japanese ryū (竜/龍), typically translated into English as "dragon," holds a revered place in Japan’s cultural imagination. Unlike the dragons of many English-speaking mythologies—often depicted as fire-breathing monsters of chaos and destruction—the ryū is a creature of balance, wisdom, and cosmological order. This essay explores the religious, folkloric, and martial significance of the ryū in Japan while reframing its interpretation through semiotic theory, particularly in contrast with British and Continental approaches to myth, symbol, and meaning. By integrating thinkers such as Saussure, Barthes, and Eco into our reading of Japanese symbolic traditions, we seek not only to understand the ryū within its native context but also to illuminate how cross-cultural misreadings arise and persist.

Ryū in Shintō and Buddhist Traditions
In Shintō cosmology, dragons are venerated as water kami (deities) who preside over rainfall, rivers, and ocean tides. The tradition of ryūjin shinkō (龍神信仰, "dragon god faith") venerates these beings not as adversaries but as vital agents of natural harmony. The ryū is invoked in agricultural rites, maritime rituals, and seasonal festivals as a symbol of generative, life-giving power.
In Japanese Buddhism, the dragon inherits the attributes of the Indian nāga—serpentine beings who protect sacred teachings. The Eight Great Dragon Kings (Hachidai Ryūō) appear in the Lotus Sūtra as protectors of the Dharma, and the sea-god Ryūjin, who governs the tides with magical jewels, becomes a recurring figure across both religious traditions. In semiotic terms, the dragon here functions as a sign whose signified meaning is layered with religious, ecological, and ethical implications—a polyvalent emblem rather than a static mythological creature.
Folklore and Anthropological Perspectives
Anthropologists have long noted the syncretic origins of the Japanese ryū: it emerges from the convergence of indigenous snake worship, Chinese cosmology, and Buddhist iconography. Early dragons such as Yamata no Orochi and mizuchi were deeply entwined with local water cults and the sacredness of the natural world. These figures often required propitiation rather than extermination, emphasising coexistence over conquest.
In semiotic terms, these narratives encode a distinct relationship to nature. Roland Barthes’ notion of myth as a "second-order semiological system" is instructive here: the image of the dragon becomes a mythic construct whose surface meaning (a powerful creature) is undergirded by a deeper cultural grammar (nature’s duality, spiritual potency, moral consequence). When read outside its native context, this semiotic density is often flattened.
Myths such as Urashima Tarō’s journey to the Dragon Palace or the imperial descent from Ryūjin’s daughter function not simply as fantastical tales but as legitimising narratives that encode Japan’s understanding of authority, ancestry, and cosmic interconnection. To approach them without a semiotic sensitivity is to miss the multiplicity of registers in which the ryū operates—as ancestor, protector, teacher, and mirror of the natural world.

The Dragon in Budō Philosophy
In Budō, the ryū becomes an embodied metaphor for martial ethics. Unlike the tiger—symbolising raw aggression and instinct—the dragon represents strategic flexibility and moral discernment. The ryū can ascend or descend, strike or withdraw, heal or destroy. As such, it is frequently invoked in ryū-ha (流派, traditional martial lineages) for its mystical appeal and pedagogical value.
This distinction is evident in dojo iconography, ceremonial scrolls, and kuden (oral teachings), where the ryū reminds that true martial strength lies in discretion, adaptability, and restraint. Martial thinkers like Takuan Sōhō echoed this ethos in their insistence on mushin (無心, "no-mind") and zanshin (残心, "remaining mind")—states of readiness and clarity in which ethical intent and skilful means are harmonised.
Semiotically, the ryū in Budō is what Umberto Eco might call an "open text": its meaning evolves with context, but it remains anchored in a symbolic code intelligible to the initiated. It does not simply represent "power" but spiritually, morally, and ecologically accountable power. The dragon's fluid movement and elemental nature become a heuristic for self-cultivation: a form that teaches without declaring.

​Comparative Table: Japanese Ryū vs. English-speaking Dragon Archetypes
Trait
Japanese Ryū
English-speaking World Dragon
See the top chart above

Conclusion: A Semiotics of the Ryū
The ryū symbolises harmony and ethical strength in Japan, deeply embedded in Shintō cosmology, Buddhist iconography, and martial philosophy. Unlike the adversarial dragons of many English-speaking myths, the Japanese dragon offers a model for coexistence, not through domination, but through reverence, balance, and ethical discernment.
Approaching the ryū through the prism of European semiotic theory clarifies how meaning can fracture in cross-cultural transmission. Saussure’s dyadic model helps us understand how the ryū, as signifier, is often misread by non-Japanese audiences who fixate on its visual ferocity. The signified—its cultural connotations of ecological balance, imperial ancestry, and moral calibration—is obscured or replaced. Barthes’ theory of myth explains how imported readings overwrite native meaning, turning the ryū into spectacle, fantasy, or exoticised danger.
Eco’s model of the open text reminds us that while symbols evolve, they do so within constraints. The ryū remains intelligible within Japanese symbolic grammar because a network of ritual, pedagogy, and philosophy sustains it. To reduce it to a globalised image of "the dragon" is to privilege connotation over cultural depth, and visual affect over semiotic embeddedness.
In Japanese tradition, the ryū is more than a creature—it is a way of thinking, being, and relating. It embodies the possibility of action with reflection, of power without pride. It is a cipher for a cosmology in which strength, humility, ascent and descent, stillness and ferocity coexist. To truly understand the ryū is to read its scales and silences and let its coils teach us the grammar of ethical presence and poise.
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竜の記号論：日本文化における宗教、民俗、武道に見られる「竜」の意味要旨（Summary）
この論文は、日本の「竜（りゅう／龍）」が単なる神話的存在ではなく、宗教的象徴、民俗伝承、そして武道の倫理体系に深く根差した多層的な記号であることを論じています。記号論（特にソシュール、バルト、エーコの理論）を用いて、西洋、特に英語圏における「ドラゴン」との解釈の違いを明らかにします。
主要ポイント

1. 宗教的背景
   　神道では、竜は水神として田畑や海を守る存在であり、龍神信仰は雨乞いや豊穣祈願と結びついています。仏教においては、インドのナーガ信仰の影響を受け、法を守る守護者として登場します（例：八大竜王）。
2. 民俗学的視点
   　竜は、古代日本の蛇信仰、中国の陰陽五行思想、仏教の象徴体系が融合して生まれた存在であり、自然との共生を象徴しています。竜退治の神話でさえも、単なる征服ではなく、水害など自然の力との調和を描いています。
3. 武道における竜
   　武道において竜は、単なる力の象徴ではなく、「選択肢を持つ存在」、すなわち攻撃も癒しも可能な倫理的存在として捉えられています。流派（流派／りゅうは）や道場では、竜は慎みと柔軟性を体現するものとして用いられます。これは「無心（むしん）」「残心（ざんしん）」の精神とも響き合います。
4. 記号論的考察
   　竜はソシュールの「シニフィアン／シニフィエ」において、外見の「竜」以上の多層的意味（信仰、祖先、自然観）を内包しています。バルトが論じたように、西洋の視点はこの竜を“力”の神話として誤読しがちです。エーコの「開かれたテクスト」としての竜は、状況によって意味が変わり得るが、常に日本文化の文脈において解釈されるべき存在です。

結論
竜は、日本においては単なる神話上の存在ではなく、「生き方」を象徴する記号です。それは、力と慎み、上昇と下降、静けさと激しさが共存する倫理的な存在であり、外面的なイメージではなく、文化的・宗教的・哲学的文脈の中で理解されるべきものです。


References
Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies. Translated by A. Lavers. London: Jonathan Cape.
de Visser, M. W. (1913). The Dragon in China and Japan. Amsterdam: Johannes Müller.
Eco, U. (1984). The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Kanda, C. (2001). "Ryūjin Shinkō to Nihon Bunka" [Dragon God Belief and Japanese Culture], Kokugakuin Daigaku Kiyō, 39, pp. 45–67.
Kasulis, T. P. (2004). Shinto: The Way Home. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Kitagawa, J. M. (1987). On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Saussure, F. de (1983). Course in General Linguistics. Translated by R. Harris. London: Duckworth.
Sōhō, T. (1986). The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master. Translated by W. S. Wilson. Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Knutsen, R. (2004). Rediscovering Budo: From the Past to the Present. Leiden: Brill.
Ashkenazi, M. (1993). Matsuri: The Festivals of a Japanese Town. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

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