The eight divisions of the Heavenly Dragon are the most important.
"The heavenly beings", the Buddhist cosmology has three realms (desire, color, colorless), six paths (heaven, human, asura, animal, hungry ghosts, hell), and the desire realm has six heavenly realms: the Four Heavenly Kings Heaven, the Thirty-Three Heavenly Realms, the Night Mothers Heaven, the Toodle Heaven, the Harmonious Heaven, and the Otherwise Self-Realizing Heaven. The "heavenly beings" are those who live in the various levels of the heavens, whose lives are much better than those on earth, and whose lifespans are also much longer. The heavenly beings of course also include the heavenly kings, such as the Lord of the Emperors and the Lord of the Daivas, who are often referred to as gods in folklore. The Chinese language often uses ellipses, so the word "heaven" includes at least four meanings: first, the firmament; second, the heavenly realm; third, celestial beings, and fourth, heavenly kings. The heavenly hosts refer to the celestial beings and the heavenly kings. Buddhism believes that all things are impermanent and all beings in the six paths are in the cycle of reincarnation, so even though celestial beings have great blessings, they still have to die at the end of their lives. Before a celestial being dies, there are five signs: dirtiness of clothes, wilting of flowers on the head, foul smell of the body, sweating under the armpits, and displeasure of the seat (the fifth sign is said to be "the separation of the jade"), which is called "the five failures of the celestial beings", and it is the greatest sorrow of the celestial beings. The emperor is the leader of all the celestial beings.
The "dragons" in the "dragon congregation" are roughly the same as the "dragon kings" or "dragons" in our legends. The "dragon" in the "dragon congregation" is similar to the "dragon king" or "dragon" in our legend, but it has no feet and lives mainly in the water. China's "dragon" history has been pushed to 8,000 years ago, in terms of time, it should be China's dragon culture was absorbed by India, the scriptures have five dragon king, seven dragon king, eight dragon king and so on the name of the ancient Indians on the dragon is very Dragon eight characters look like the description of the great respect for the water creatures to the dragon's strength is the greatest, and therefore respect for the virtues of the noble people as the "dragon elephant". The people of the "Dragon Elephant", such as "Western Dragon" refers to the monks from the West. Ancient Indians thought that rain is the dragon from the sky and sea water and sprinkle the earth, this point is also very similar to our ancient culture of the dragon. Calendars indicate how many dragons fetch water, indicating the amount of rain in that year. Among the dragon kings, there is a dragon king called Shakuro (meaning sea), his youngest daughter at the age of eight years old to Shakyamuni said in front of the Lingwu Mountain, after listening to the Dharma, immediately turned into a male body, rose up in the air and drove the auspicious clouds to the south to show the Buddha to the masses. This rare event was seen by the Eight Heavenly Dragons.
"Nightjar" is a kind of ghosts and deities in the Buddhist scriptures, the leaders of which are "Eight Generals of Nightjar" and "Sixteen Generals of Nightjar". The original meaning of "Nightjar" is the god who can eat ghosts, but also has the meaning of agility, courage, lightness, secret, etc. "Vimalakirti" is a Buddhist scripture. "Vimal sutra" note: "sh said: 'night fork has three kinds: one, on the ground, two, in the void, three, the sky night fork.'" Nowadays, people often refer to evil spirits when they talk about "nightjars". But in the Buddhist scriptures, many of the nightjars were transformed by Buddhism into the guardians of the Dharma, and the eight generals of the nightjars were tasked with "safeguarding the realm of living beings".
"Chandrakirti," also known as the "God of Fragrance," is a god who does not eat meat and wine, but only seeks fragrance as nourishment, and is one of the gods of music and singing who serve the Emperor, emitting a strong and refreshing fragrance. The word "Kandapa" means "unpredictable" in Sanskrit, and magicians are also called "Kandapa", and a mirage is called "Kandapa City". The scent and the music are both indistinct and elusive.
The "Asura" Shinto religion is very special, with the male being extremely ugly and the female extremely beautiful. The king of the Asuras often led his troops to fight with the emperor, because the Asuras had beautiful women but no good food, and the emperor had good food but no beautiful women, and they were jealous of each other and seized each other, and every time there was a fierce battle, it was always a great battle. The result of the great battle, the Asura often defeat, up and down the world nowhere to escape, so incarnation into the lotus root silk hole. King Asura is irritable, stubborn and jealous. Shakyamuni said, said "Four Noble Truths", the Asura King also said, said "Five Noble Truths"; Shakyamuni said "Thirty-seven Paths", the Asura King preferred to add one more, "Thirty-eight Paths", "Thirty-eight Paths", "Thirty-eight Paths", "Thirty-eight Paths". The King of Asuras also said, "The Five Noble Truths". The Great Wisdom Treatise, Volume 35: "Asura's heart is not proper, always suspecting the Buddha, saying that the Buddha helps the sky. For the Buddha to say 'five congregations', it is said that there are six congregations, not one; if he says 'the Four Noble Truths', it is said that there are five Noble Truths, not one." The "five congregations" are the five skandhas" and the Four Noble Truths are basic ideas in Buddhism. Asura king has a lot of power, a lot of ability, is to love to engage in "chaos, the more chaos the better" thing, asura and very suspicious, in listening to the Buddha's statement, suspected that the Buddha is partial to the emperor, intentionally said less of the same. Most of the myths in the suttas are metaphors.
"Garuda" refers to the "golden-winged bird god". This is a large bird with wings of various majestic colors and a raised Ruyi bead on its head. This bird has a sad and bitter voice and feeds on dragons, eating one dragon and 500 smaller dragons every day. At the end of its life, it could not eat any more because of all the poisons accumulated in its body, so it flew up and down seven times to the top of Vajra Chakra Mountain. Because he had been feeding on dragons (big poisonous snakes) all his life, he had accumulated so much poison in his body that he set himself on fire when he was about to die. After his body was burned away, only one heart remained, which was pure green glaze color. There was an old novel that said Yue Fei was the reincarnation of the "Roc Golden-winged Bird".
The god of song, "Guanara", is a musician who specializes in playing music. In Sanskrit, it means "non-human". His shape was like that of a human being, but he had a horn on his head, so he was called a "non-human", and he was good at singing and dancing, and he was the god of music of the emperor.
"Mokhuloka" is a python god with a human body and a snake's head. In the Shurangama Sutra, Mokhuloka is explained as follows: "Mokhuloka, the cloud of the earth dragon, also cloud python god, the belly line and so on. This body is caused by the dementia and the rage, and it is deaf and ignorant, so it is happy to get rid of the Lun. Cultivate kindness and wisdom, redeem the previous cause, and get rid of their Lun category." In other words, Mokhuloka is the earth dragon that corresponds to the heavenly dragon, and was originally of the abdominal lineage category, but "by the demented anarchy, this body was perceived," and due to "deafness and ignorance," he was able instead to "so he was happy to get rid of the dragon, cultivate kindness and wisdom," and ultimately redeem his previous cause. "In the end, he was able to redeem his former cause, get rid of the abdominal lineage, and be reborn as a new man.
The author used this as the title of the book to symbolize the various characters in the world.
Not specific to individuals.