一切經音義 96.76

96.76

蛟螭: The first character is pronounced jiao (交). The second character has the fanqie phonetic notation chi (恥) + li (離). The Shanhaijing states: 'In the Xian River there are jiao dragons; they have fish bodies and snake tails; yuanyang ducks feed on them, and eating them can cure hemorrhoids. Moreover, in the Kuang River there are many jiao dragons.' Guo says: 'Resembling a snake with four legs, small head, and narrow neck; the neck has a white ruff; the large ones are over ten spans around; they lay eggs producing young as large as one or two hu jars; they can swallow humans.' The Shuowen jiezi states: 'A kind of dragon. When the fish in an eddy reach 3,600, a jiao comes to be their leader; it leads the fish in flight, but placing poisonous chives into the water will cause the jiao to depart. Analyzed as following the semantic component "insect" (虫) and the phonetic component jiao (交).'