Dragons and Dragon Lore, by Ernest Ingersoll, , at sacred-
texts.com THE DRAGON'S PRECIOUS PEARL A MOST curious,
interesting, and at the same time obscure feature of this whole
baffling subject is that of the so-called Pearl which
accompanies the dragon in pictures and legends from the earliest
times, and is common to the religious traditions of the whole
East--India, China and Japan. Necklaces of pearls are a regular
part of the regalia of naga-queens in their submarine palaces;
and we read often in the old Vedic books of a magical jewel of
good luck,' which was in custody of the naga-maidens but was
lost by them through terror of their monstrous enemy, the bird
garuda. There are traces of it in early Taoism, but it is best
preserved in Buddhism as the jewel in the lotus, the mani of the
mystic, ecstatic, formula Om mani padme hum--the "Jewel that
grants all desires," the 'divine pearl' of the Buddhists
throughout the Orient. Koreans commonly believe that the yellow
(chief) dragon carries on his forehead (as