Bringing the Painted Dragons to Life by Putting Pupils in Their Eyes
3 min readBringing the Painted Dragons to Life by Putting Pupils in Their Eyes
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, once lived a famous painter named Zhang Sengyao who was highly praised for his fine art by the emperor Liang Wudi.
Once the emperor asked Zhang to do a wall painting of four dragons for the Temple of Andong in Jinling(present city of Nangjing in Jiangsu Province). Zhang Sengyao accepted andcompleted the paintings in only three days. The painting was beautiful and the dragons were vividly lifelike, as though they were actual dragons!
When Zhang Sengyao was finished, many visitors came in praise of the paintings.
However, when people looked closely, they discovered that the otherwise complete dragons were all missing the pupils of their eyes. Everyone repeatedly asked Zhang Sengyao to paint in the pupils, to which he replied,”To give the dragons pupils would not be difficult, butifIdid so, these dragons would break out of the wall and fly away.”But people didn’t believe him.
Finally, he gave up explaining, and agreed to paint in the dragons’ eyes. That day, many people gathered in front of the painted wall. Zhang Sengyao stood in front of the crowd and raised his brush. Deftly, he painted in the eyes of two dragons, and a strange thing occurred.
Just as he finished the eyes of the second dragon, the sky suddenly was covered with thick, black clouds,a violent wind kicked up from all directions, thunder roared, and lightning flashed. In the flash of a lightning bolt, people could see that the two dragons were shaking the wall apart and rising into the air. Displaying teeth and brandishing claws, they mounted the clouds and mist and rose towards the heavens.
After a moment had passed, the skies cleared and people stood dumbfounded and speechless. Looking at the wall, only the two dragons which were not given eyes remained.
The Frog in the Shallow Well
Have you not heard of the frog that lived in a shallow well? It said to a turtle that lived in the East Sea,”I am so happy! When I go out,I jump about on the railing beside the mouth of the well. When I come home,I rest in the holes on the broken wall of the well. If I jump into the water, it comes up to my armpits and holds up my cheeks. If I walk in the mud, it covers up my feet.I look around at the wriggly worms, crabs and tadpoles, and none of them can compare with me. Moreover,I am the lord of this trough of water and I stand up tall in this shallow well.
My happiness is full. My dear sir, why don’t you come often and look around my place?”
Before the turtle from the East Sea could get its left foot in the well, its right knee got stuck.
It hesitated and retreated. The turtle told the frog about the East Sea.
“Even a distance of a thousand li cannot give you an idea of the sea’s width; even a heightof a thousand zhang cannot give you an idea of its depth. In the time of King Yu of the Xia Dynasty, there were floods nine years out of ten, but the waters in the sea did not increase. In the time of King Tang of the Shang Dynasty there were droughts seven years out of eight, but the waters in the sea did not decrease. The sea does not change along with the passage of time and its level does not rise or fall according to the amount of rain that falls. The greatest happiness is to live in the East Sea.”
After listening to these words, the frog of the shallow well was shocked into realization of his own insignificance and became very ill at ease.
