The eternal attraction of a Chinese dragon

Elsewhere, the dragon, painted in gold, lends itself to a 15th-century red lacquer box containing Buddhist sutras before making another appearance alongside a tiger in two hanging scrolls flanking a wooden statue of Guanyin, a Buddhist icon known as the goddess of mercy.

All evidence points to Chinese dragons moving freely between the worlds of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. With their powerful claws gripping the imagination of generations of Chinese, they propelled their way across the country's cultural and artistic history, becoming an enduring phenomenon with a profound impact on the nation's consciousness.

The answer to the obvious question of where the Chinese dragon came from is as elusive as the creature itself.

Based on the dragon's scaled, serpentine body, many researchers have suggested a connection with either snake or crocodile or both. While the former seems to have the capacity to arouse awe and fear, and has served throughout human history as a totem for many ancient cultures, the latter is believed to have once existed in relatively large numbers in the Yellow River Basin, one of the cradles of Chinese civilization.