Bailongma and Tang Sanzang

Tang Sanzang left Chang’an on an ordinary horse, and at Eagle Grief Stream on Coiled Snake Mountain the horse was swallowed, saddle and bridle together, by Ao Lie in the water. Guanyin came above the stream, set out the order about the pilgrimage, and turned the dragon prince of the Western Sea into a new white horse.

Tang Sanzang tied the scriptures and his clothes onto its back and rode Ao Lie from then on through desert, cold rivers and walled towns. The white horse never showed its dragon body in the ordinary way, only grazing at the roadside and carrying its master; only in the kingdom of Baoxiang, when Tang Sanzang had been turned into a striped tiger by the Yellow Robe Monster, did it take dragon form at night and, disguised as a palace woman, try to kill the demon with a sword. Beaten and wounded, Ao Lie swam back to the palace moat, told Zhu Bajie what had happened, and urged him to fetch Sun Wukong from Mount Huaguo.

Once Tang Sanzang was human again he rode it to Vulture Peak. The pilgrimage complete, Ao Lie washed off the horse’s body in the dragon-transforming pool and was invested as the Dragon of the Eight Classes, the Bodhisattva of Vast Power, while Tang Sanzang was invested as the Buddha of Sandalwood Merit.