[RPG] Is Dungeons & Dragons the origin of “Bahamut” as a dragon

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Bahamut, the platinum dragon god of good, metallic dragons, takes his name from the Bahamut of Arabian mythology, the great fish upon which the earth rests.

The similarities between dragons, serpents, and fish are noted, and the three have been conflated often throughout history. Nonetheless, Bahamut is almost-always, in modern media, depicted as a very Western dragon: not very serpenty at all (cf. Final Fantasy, Ogre Battle, more I’m sure). The Arabian Bahamut, too, seems very distinctly fishy, not a sea serpent or even serpent-like fish.

The name “Bahamut” was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in the AD&D Monster Manual, 1977 (the dragon itself was in Greyhawk, 1975, but unnamed). This well predates the various video games, at the very least.

As far as I can tell, Bahamut-as-a-dragon is a thing that Dungeons & Dragons introduced, which is where the Final Fantasy version comes from (the original Final Fantasy being very close to Dungeons & Dragons, and including Bahamut the Dragon King as well as Tiamat the Five-headed Dragon). From Final Fantasy, other video games also used the name for a great dragon, and from video gaming this seems to have spread to other media.

But I’m not sure that Dungeons & Dragons is not basing this on still-older media that uses the name Bahamut. So my question is: did Dungeons & Dragons originate the concept of the name “Bahamut” applying to a dragon, or was that based on something else?

Best Answer

Here is what I was able to discover using a Google Books search. Between 1900 and 1975 the words Bahamut and Dragon come up only in obscure research books about the Bible and Mythical creatures. However in all these books, it is clear that "dragon" is a reference to either a Sea-serpent type creature, or the mythical world serpent. (Mostly in reference to passages in psalms and job, as well as Arabic and Jewish mythological writings) It's also clear that most of these books are focused on the identification of Bahamut with Behemoth. Neither of which are clearly dragons.

After 1976, the words show up together in fantasy related material. I was able to find one reference to a generic mythology book from 1987 but its clear that even in this generic book, it is referring to the dragons of D&D fame. (Citing rules from D&D to describe the dragon's abilities)

I think its safe to say that D&D created the connection between the typical D&D Dragon like creature and Bahamut, and that Gygax or Anderson was inspired by the sea serpent when looking for a name for the Good Dragon deity.

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