Introduction on Prince of Fiery Dragon (去厄消災火龍太子簡介)

In here, Jave Wu will like to do a brief introduction on another Taoist Deity that being Forgotten by the Mass-Taoist-Population.

This Deity is known as Prince of Fiery Dragon, in Chinese, known as Huo Long Tai Zi (火龍太子).

According to Records, Huo Long Tai Zi was being widely honoured and respected in Late Song Dynasty & Early Yuan Dynasty and then was being neglected till Late Ming Dynasty and Extinct in Qing Dynasty until China Cultural Revolution ended, then it appeared again in the Northern China Taoist Culture.

As we can see from the Timeline, actually Huo Long Tai Zi had been with us for more than 1000 years, but why he was being neglected & abandoned?

Reasons are:

1 Due to it was not being Promoted uprightly
2 Due to the quick change in Taoist Culture & Belief
3 Due to his Authority was being over-taken by other more Popular Deities during the Transition Period
4 Due to the Ending of Song Dynasty

As shown in Taoist Contexts, Huo Long Tai Zi was actually referring to the First Emperor of Song Dynasty, which is Zhao Kuang Yin (趙匡胤) aka Emperor Song Tai Zu (宋太祖). In some Contexts, he was also being addressed as Er Lu Yuan Shuai (二路元帥).

After Zhao Kuang Yin got onto the Throne, the Society was quite satisfied with the result and the credit that he had put in and after Zhao Kuang Yin had passed-on, one year where the Song Empire encountered a serious Natural Disaster, a Taoist Master dreamt that Zhao Kuang Yin had subdued a Fiery Dragon and upon subduing the Dragon, the Natural Disaster was ceased. After then, the Taoist Master got the assistance from a Scroll Painter to draw out a Picture of Zhao Kuang Yin riding on a Fiery Dragon, travelling around the whole World to cease Disaster. Due to Zhao Kuang Yin was an Emperor of the Song Empire, his name was not able to being addressed directly and also due to Official Restrictions, Zhao Kuang Yin’s name was not able to be mentioned on the Scroll and so, upon getting the permission “spiritual” from Zhao Kuang Yin, the Taoist Master got an “order” to address him as Huo Long Tai Zi. And this was how Huo Long Tai Zi came about.

After the Scroll was being mass-produced for distribution, the Belief of Huo Long Tai Zi started to increase and within a short period, the whole Song Empire was being introduced to Huo Long Tai Zi. Due to in Song Dynasty, there was a rise in the Belief of Jade Emperor of Heaven aka Yu Huang Da Tian Zun (玉皇大天尊), slowly People started to associated Huo Long Tai Zi was the “Son” of Yu Huang due to the addressing-term of Prince and so, it somehow assist the Popularity of Huo Long Tai Zi to increase faster.

Besides that, due to the “Spiritual Effects” after putting up the Scroll of Huo Long Tai Zi (un-explainable by Science), the honouring of Huo Long Tai Zi became more Popular.

But soon after the Jin Troop invaded Song Empire and the last few Song Emperors were being forced to leave the Capital, Surrendered, Captured, etc, the Popularity of Huo Long Tai Zi started to decline and last, disappeared from the Honouring System of the Song Taoist Culture.
After Yuan Dynasty was being defeated and chased out from the China Land, Ming Dynasty arises Proudly in our Chinese History. And with the assistance of the Myths & Legends that added onto the background of Emperor Zhu Yuan Zhang (朱元璋), People started to associate him with Deities again and soon, Huo Long Tai Zi appeared again.

This time round, Huo Long Tai Zi didn’t appeared as one of the Deities that ceased Natural Disasters, but becoming a Deity that could Ward-off Negative Entities and providing Peace. Soon, the Belief of Huo Long Tai Zi started to increase again and within a period, the whole Ming Empire was being “Equipped” with Huo Long Tai Zi and this time round, Huo Long Tai Zi even entered into the Culture & Beliefs of the Tribal Troupes in Tibet & Extreme Northern China.

But again, due to the Downfall of the Ming Empire at the later part of the History, the honouring of Huo Long Tai Zi stopped and from then, it became weaker and slowly being forgotten by the Population. Only in the Northern China, Huo Long Tai Zi was still being honoured as a Protector.

And so, what is the Real Identity of Huo Long Tai Zi in Taoist Contexts?

To be more accurate, Huo Long Tai Zi is one of the Assistance Immortals in the Taoist Deity System.

In some Contexts, Huo Long Tai Zi was one of the assistants of Ma Zu (媽祖), which assist Ma Zu in finding the Suffering Beings.

According to some descriptions, Huo Long Tai Zi ride on a Red/Orange Dragon, both hands holding on to 2 Mirrors – 1 represent Yin & other represent Yang. Whenever there are accidents or drowning incidents, the Mirrors will shine onto the spot like a Lantern and from there, Ma Zu will make her way to perform the rescue.

Another form was, Huo Long Tai Zi look quite similar to Lord of Sun aka Tai Yang Xing Jun (太陽星君),which he will ride on a Red Dragon to travel around the World to assist the Sufferings/Needy.

And so, nowadays who is there still honouring him?

Now only in Northern China such as Yunnan People is still honouring Huo Long Tai Zi. Whenever the People felt that their issues are not able to solve, they will approach their Spiritual Masters and after the Spiritual Masters do chanting on the Paper with printed Huo Long Tai Zi’s picture, they will proceed with the burning off or paste the Paper in the House, hoping that Huo Long Tai Zi will come to their place to perform the Salvation.

Besides that, in Taiwan, few years ago, one of the Temples also started to bring back the honouring of Huo Long Tai Zi, but too bad is that, the image of Huo Long Tai Zi changed to look like Zhong Tan Yuan Shuai (中壇元帥), which tend to confuse the people.

In Summary

In the future, when you come across a Deity with the above descriptions, do try to find out more, maybe in somewhere in South East Asia, we can still find Huo Long Tai Zi existing to assist the Needy.