The story of One Piece has been around for a quarter of a century. I was one year old when Eiichiro Oda published the first chapter of One Piece in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
With every chapter, the world of One Piece keeps getting more immersive. Now we’re more than a thousand chapters into the story, and there are still so many unsolved mysteries. In every arc, Oda answers some questions but then raises even more mysteries for us to figure out. And one such mystery is the devil fruit of Monkey D. Dragon.
The father of our protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, Dragon was first introduced in the story in Chapter 100 in the Loguetown Arc. And even after almost a thousand chapters, we have no idea what kind of powers he possesses.
In this write-up, I’ll try to convince you guys that Monkey D. Dragon is based on the Wind God Pawan of Hindu mythology.
Monkey D. Luffy
Before taking a look at Dragon, let’s talk about his son Luffy. When it was revealed that Luffy’s devil fruit is not the Gomu-Gomu no mi, a lot of fans thought the fruit would end up being either Sun Wukong or Hanuman related.
Even though it ended up being Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, we can’t deny that Oda has taken considerable inspiration for Luffy from the Hindu god Hanuman.
The fact that Hanuman is a monkey god who could change his size is enough to say that Luffy shares similarities with him. What’s more, the final attack Luffy used to defeat Kaido is called the Bajrang Gun. And Bajrang is another name for Hanuman.
Monkey D. Dragon
When Dragon was first introduced in the story at Loguetown, he brought a storm along with him. Similarly, in the Goa Kingdom, when Dragon was around, strong wings blew in his vicinity. So a lot of people thought that he had wind powers, maybe a Wind Logia devil fruit.
Later in Wano, we saw Kaido also manipulating the clouds, so many people thought Dragon might have a Mythical Zoan Dragon devil fruit. After all, his name is Dragon.
While we can’t be a hundred percent sure, it is very likely that Dragon has some kind of wind devil fruit. What makes this even more plausible is the fact that The Wind God in Hindu Mythology — Pawan, is the spiritual father of Hanuman (Luffy).
It is possible that Oda took inspiration from the Ramayana and gave Dragon wind powers based on this connection.
What do you guys think Dragon’s devil fruit is? A wind logia?A mythical zoan dragon? Or maybe some kind of a Mythical Zoan god inspired by Pawan.
You can read the One Piece manga on the Viz website.