No symbol appears more consistently across the mythologies of the world than the serpent. From the Sumerian Tiamat to the Norse Jörmungandr, from the Vedic Vritra to the Biblical serpent in Eden, from the Chinese dragon to the Aztec Quetzalcóatl — the snake, the dragon, and the great serpent recur as the central figure in creation myths, heroic battles, and wisdom traditions on every continent. Its ubiquity is one of comparative mythology's most striking facts.
The dragon-slaying myth — hero overcomes great serpent and releases what the serpent has held captive — is the most widely distributed heroic myth in the world. Comparative mythologists identify it as an inheritance from the Proto-Indo-European tradition, though it appears in non-Indo-European cultures as well, suggesting either independent invention or very ancient common origins.
The dragon is not simply the enemy. It is the guardian of the treasure — and it must be faced, not because it is evil, but because the treasure cannot be obtained any other way. The dragon is the difficulty that makes the achievement real.
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand FacesThe Western tradition almost universally casts the dragon as adversary — the chaos monster, the devil, the obstacle to be overcome. The Eastern tradition — particularly Chinese — presents the dragon as an overwhelmingly positive force: bringer of rain, guardian of the emperor, symbol of yang power, cosmic intelligence made visible. The dragon of Chinese mythology is not something to be slain but something to be aligned with.
This difference is not merely cultural taste. It reflects different theological frameworks: the Western sky-god tradition, in which the divine principle is transcendent and the earthly-chthonic is its adversary, versus the Eastern cosmological tradition, in which heaven and earth are aspects of a single dynamic system in which neither is superior. The Western dragon is what the sky god must conquer. The Eastern dragon is the sky's own expression.
The Nāga tradition of South and Southeast Asia occupies a middle position — the Nāgas are serpentine beings who can be terrifying or benevolent, who must be propitiated rather than slain, who guard treasure and underworld knowledge, and whose relationship with the sky gods is one of tension and negotiation rather than outright warfare.