In
Chinese mythologyChinese Mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written are several aspects to Chinese mythology, including creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state...
, the
shen or
chen is a
shapeshiftingShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology and folklore, as well as in science fiction and fantasy. In its broadest sense, it is when a being undergoes a transformation. Commonly the transformation is purposeful, and not a curse or spell...
dragonChinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...
or
sea monsterSea monsters are sea-dwelling mythical or legendary creatures, often believed to be of immense size.Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or multi-armed beasts; they can be slimy or scaly, often spouting jets of water. Often they are pictured threatening ships...
believed to create
mirageA mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to...
s.
Chinese classic textsChinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics . All of these pre-Qin text were written in classical Chinese...
use the word
shen to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later associated with "mirages".
The word used to mean a shellfish, or mollusk, identified as an
oysterThe word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....
,
musselThe common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
, or
giant clamThe giant clam, Tridacna gigas, or traditionally, pa’ua, is the largest living bivalve mollusk. One of a number of large clam species native to the shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, they can weigh more than 200 kilograms , measure as much as 1.2 metres across, and have an...
such as the
Pearl of Lao TzuThe Pearl of Lao Tzu is the largest known "pearl" in the world. It is not a gem quality pearl, but is instead what is known as a clam "pearl" or Tridacna "pearl" from a giant clam. It measures 24 centimeter in diameter and weighs 6.4 kilograms...
.
In
Chinese mythologyChinese Mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written are several aspects to Chinese mythology, including creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state...
, the
shen or
chen is a
shapeshiftingShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology and folklore, as well as in science fiction and fantasy. In its broadest sense, it is when a being undergoes a transformation. Commonly the transformation is purposeful, and not a curse or spell...
dragonChinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...
or
sea monsterSea monsters are sea-dwelling mythical or legendary creatures, often believed to be of immense size.Marine monsters can take many forms, including sea dragons, sea serpents, or multi-armed beasts; they can be slimy or scaly, often spouting jets of water. Often they are pictured threatening ships...
believed to create
mirageA mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to...
s.
Meanings
Chinese classic textsChinese classic texts or Chinese canonical texts refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Confucian Four Books and Five Classics . All of these pre-Qin text were written in classical Chinese...
use the word
shen to mean "a large shellfish" that was associated with funerals and "an aquatic monster" that could change its shape, which was later associated with "mirages".
Large shellfish
The word used to mean a shellfish, or mollusk, identified as an
oysterThe word oyster is used as a common name for a number of distinct groups of bivalve molluscs which live in marine or brackish habitats. The valves are highly calcified....
,
musselThe common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
, or
giant clamThe giant clam, Tridacna gigas, or traditionally, pa’ua, is the largest living bivalve mollusk. One of a number of large clam species native to the shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, they can weigh more than 200 kilograms , measure as much as 1.2 metres across, and have an...
such as the
Pearl of Lao TzuThe Pearl of Lao Tzu is the largest known "pearl" in the world. It is not a gem quality pearl, but is instead what is known as a clam "pearl" or Tridacna "pearl" from a giant clam. It measures 24 centimeter in diameter and weighs 6.4 kilograms...
. While early Chinese dictionaries treat
shen as a general term for "
molluscaMolluscs
[Spelled mollusk in the USA, see reasons given in Rosenberg's ; for the spelling "mollusc" see the reasons given by .] are animals belonging to the phylum Mollusca. There are around 93,000 recognized extant species, making it the largest marine phylum with about 23% of...
", the
EryaThe Erya is the oldest extant Chinese dictionary or Chinese encyclopedia. Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from" the 3rd century BC....
defines it as a large
yao (珧) which means shellfish, clam, scallop, or mother-of-pearl. According to
Shuowen JieziThe Shuōwén Jiězì was an early 2nd century CE Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty...
, an early 2nd century CE
Chinese dictionaryChinese dictionaries date back over two millennia to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which is a significantly longer lexicographical history than any other language. There are hundreds of dictionaries for Chinese, and this article will introduce some of the most important...
of the
Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
defines it a large
ge (蛤), meaning clam, oyster, shellfish, or bivalve.
Chinese classics variously record that
shen was salted as a food (in
Zuozhuan), named a "lacquered wine barrel" used in sacrifices to earth spirits (in
Zhouli), and its shells were used to make hoes (in
HuainanziThe Huainanzi is a 2nd century BCE Chinese philosophical classic from the Han dynasty that blends Daoist, Confucianist, and Legalist concepts, including theories such as Yin-Yang and the Five Phases...
) and receptacles (in
ZhuangziZhuangzi was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE during the Warring States Period, corresponding to the Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical summit of Chinese thought...
). They also record two
shen-compoundsIn linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word-formation that creates compound lexemes...
related with funerals:
shenche "hearse" (
Zhouli,
Guo PuGuo Pu , courtesy name Jingchun , born in Yuncheng, Shanxi, was a noted natural historian and also a versatile and prolific writer of the Jin Dynasty. He wrote The Book of Burial, an early source of fengshui doctrine...
's commentary notes
shen means large shell-like wheel rims) and
shentan 蜃炭 (with "charcoal") "oyster-lime; white clay", which was especially used as mortar for mausoleum walls (
Zuozhuan,
Zhouli).
Wolfram EberhardWolfram Eberhard was a professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley focused on Western, Central and Eastern Asian societies...
(1968:292) describes the
shen mussel as "a strange animal", and mentions the
Zhoulis Zhangshen 掌蜃 "Manager of Shen
", who was a special government official in charge of acquiring them for royal sacrifices and funerals. "It is not clear why these mussels were placed into the tombs," he admits, possibly either as a sacrifice to the earth god (compare shen
脤 below) or "the shell lime was used simply for a purifying and protective effect."
Edward H. SchaferEdward Hetzel Schafer, was a leading historian of Tang Dynasty China. He wrote ground-breaking works such as The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A study of Tang exotics and The Vermilion Bird: T'ang images of the South. Schafer wrote his Ph.D...
, who aptly translates shen
or chen
as "clam-monster", traces its linguistic evolution from originally designating a "large bivalve mollusc",
Beginning as an unassuming marine invertebrate, the ch'en was later imagined as a gaping, pearl-producing clam, possibly to be identified with the giant clams of tropical seas, for instance
Tridacna. Finally, by early medieval times, it had become a monster lurking in submarine grottoes, and was sometimes endowed with the attributes of a dragon – or, more likely, under influence, a
nāgaNaga or NAGA may refer to:* Nāga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.-People:* Naga people, an diverse ethnic identity in Northeast India* Naga , from Kashmir* Naga Regiment, of the Indian Army...
. It expressed its artistic nature by belching up bubbles and frothy clots. These foamy structures were sometimes worked into buildings. …The plastic exhalations of the clam-monster sometimes burst the film of surface tension and appeared to astonished mariners as stunning mansions adrift on the surface of the deep. (1989:395)
Aquatic dragon
Second, shen
蜃 meant the "clam-monster" that miraculously transformed shapes. The Shuowen jiezi
defines ge
蛤 (using a graphic variant with the he
合 phonetic above the radical) as the "category of shen
", which includes three creatures that transform within the sea. A que
雀 "sparrow" transforms into a ge
蛤, or muli
牡厲 "oyster" in QinQín or Ch'in , was a state during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods of China. It eventually grew to dominate the country and unite it in 221 BC, after which it is referred to as the Qin Dynasty...
dialect, after 1000 (commentators say 10) years; a yan
燕 "swallow" transforms into a haige
海蛤 (with "sea") after 100 years; and a fulei
復絫, or fuyi
服翼 "bat", transforms into a kuige
魁蛤 (with "eminent") after it gets old. These kinds of legendary animal "transformations" – hua
化 "transform, change, convert, turn into; metamorphose; take the form of" (see the HuashuThe Huashu , or Book of Transformations, is a 930 CE Daoist classic about neidan "internal alchemy", psychological subjectivity, and spiritual transformation...
) – are a common theme in Chinese folklore, particularly for dragons like the shen
. The "dragon's transformations are unlimited", writes Visser (1913:126), and "it is no wonder that Chinese literature abounds with stories about dragons which had assumed the shape of men, animals, or objects.
The Yueling
月令 "Monthly Commands" chapter of the Liji
(6, tr. Legge 1885 I:292, 297) lists sparrows and pheasants transforming into shellfish during the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendarA lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year. If the solar year is defined as a tropical year then a lunisolar calendar will give an indication of the season; if it is taken as a sidereal year then the calendar will...
. In (ShuangjiangThe traditional East Asian calendars divide a year into 24 solar terms . Shuāngjiàng or Sōkō is the 18th solar term. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 210° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 225°...
) the last month of autumn, "[jue
爵, a phonetic loan character for que
雀 "sparrow"] Small birds enter the great water and become [ge
蛤] mollusks", and in (LidongThe traditional East Asian calendars divide a year into 24 solar terms . Lìdōng or Rittō is the 19th solar term. It begins when the Sun reaches the celestial longitude of 225° and ends when it reaches the longitude of 240°...
) the first month of winter, "[zhi
雉 "pheasant"] Pheasants enter the great water and become [shen
蜃] large mollusks." While many other classical texts (e.g., Lüshi Chunqiu The Lüshi Chunqiu is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BCE under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor Lü Buwei...
, Yi Zhoushu
, Huainanzi
) repeat this seasonal legend about pheasants that transform in dashui
大水 "great (bodies of) water; flood", the Da Dai Liji
and GuoyuThe Gúoyǔ is a classical Chinese history book that collect of historical records of numerous states from Western Zhou to 453 BC. Its author is unknown, but Zuo Qiuming, a contemporary of Confucius, is sometimes attributed. The Guoyu was probably compiled beginning in the 5th century BC and...
say they transform in the huai
淮 "Huai RiverThe Huai River is a major river in China. The Huai River is located about mid-way between the Yellow River and Yangtze River, the two largest rivers in China, and like them runs from west to east...
." According to Chinese folkloreChinese folklore includes songs, dances, puppetry, and tales. It often tells stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, and the supernatural, or stories explaining natural phenomena and distinctive landmarks.-Folktales:...
(Visser 1913:69) swallows are a favorite food of both Chinese long
龍 and shen
蜃 dragons. Read (1934:301) explains, "Hence if people eat swallow's flesh they should not go out and cross a river (dragons will eat them if they do)."
Eberhard (1968:293) equates the shen
蜃 with the jiaolongJiaolong or jiao is a polysemous aquatic dragon in Chinese mythology. Edward H. Schafer describes the jiao.Spiritually akin to the crocodile, and perhaps originally the same reptile, was a mysterious creature capable of many forms called the chiao . Most often it was regarded as a kind of lung – a...
蛟龍 "flood dragon; crocodile" and compares tales of both these dragons attacking cattle in rivers. The 1596 CE Bencao gangmu
Chinese materia medicaMateria medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . In Latin, the term literally means "medical material/substance"...
describes the shen
or chen
蜃 under the jiaolong
entry, with quotes from the Yueling
and Lu Dian's PiyaThe Piya was a Chinese dictionary compiled by Song Dynasty scholar Lu Dian . He wrote this Erya supplement along with his Erya Xinyi commentary...
.
A kind of crocodile shaped like a huge serpent. Horned like a dragon, with a red mane. Below the middle of the back it has scales inversely arranged. It lives on swallows. It spurts forth clouds of vapour in huge rings. It appears when it is going to rain. The fat and wax is made into candles which have a fragrant smoke noticeable 100 steps away, and ascend in layers in the air. The
Yueh-Ling
says the pheasant metamorphoses into a Ch'un
[sic
] when it enters the water. Lu Tien says that serpents and tortoises together produce tortoises but cohabitation of tortoises and pheasants produce Ch'un
, although they are different animals they are moved by the same influences. Other records refer to its relationship to the clam. (43/5, Read 1934:315, cf. Visser 1913:76)
Mirage
The shape-changing shen
is believed to cause a mirageA mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to...
or fata morganaA fata morgana, Italian translation of Morgan le Fay, the fairy shapeshifting half-sister of King Arthur, is a mirage, an optical phenomenon which results from a temperature inversion....
. Shen-
synonyms meaning "mirage" include shenlou
蜃樓 (with "multi-storied building", Schafer's 1989:396 "clam castle" or "high house of the clam-monsters"), shenqi
蜃氣 (with qiIn traditional Chinese culture, qi is an active principle forming part of any living thing....
"breath; pneuma"), shenqilou
蜃氣樓, haishishenlou
海市蜃樓 (with "sea city/market"), and shenjing
蜃景 (with "scenery"). In Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family. There are a number of proposed relationships with other languages, but none have gained general acceptance...
vocabulary, shinkirō
蜃気楼 is the usual word for "mirage". Compare the association between the long
龍 "dragon" and "waterspouts", evident in words like longjuan
龍卷 (lit. "dragon roll") "waterspout" and longjuanfeng
龍卷風 ("dragon roll wind") "cyclone; tornado" (Visser 1913:220-224).
Characters
Most Chinese characters are written with a "phonetic" element that roughly indicates pronunciation with a "radicalThe term radical is most commonly used to refer to the section headers of a Chinese dictionary , also known as index keys or classifiers. These are used to index Chinese characters in Chinese dictionaries. The indexing system supports Chinese characters throughout the ages, from Shuōwén Jiézì...
" or "signific" that suggests semantic fieldA semantic field is a set of lexemes in a named conceptual area that interrelate and define each other in specific ways. For example, the semantic field of "dog" includes "canine" and "to trail persistently" . A general and intuitive description is that words in a semantic field are not synonymous,...
. Shens standard 蜃 and antiquated 蜄 characters combine the
chen 辰 "
dragon (zodiac)The Dragon , is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Dragon is associated with the earthly branch symbol 辰...
,
duodecimalThe duodecimal system is a numeral system using twelve as its base. In this system, the number ten may be written as 'A' or 'X', and the number eleven as 'B' or 'E'...
5th of the 12
Earthly BranchesThe Earthly Branches provide one Chinese system for reckoning time.This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter. Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of Suìxīng . Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years...
; period from 7-9 AM; time period; occasion; star; celestial body" phonetic with the
chong 虫 "insect; reptile" radical.
A variety of other characters utilize this phonetic
chen 辰 "5th; dragon", which the
Wenlin says "may have depicted an ancient kind of hoe" in ancient
oracle bone scriptOracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...
(cf.
nou 耨 "hoe; rake"). Some etymologically significant examples include:
- chen 晨 (with 日 "sun") "dragon star"
- zhen 震 (with 雨 "rain") "thunder; quake" (also a bagua trigram
The Ba gua are eight diagrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent a range of interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each either "broken" or "unbroken," representing a yin line or a yang line, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as...
"The Arousing")
- zhen 振 (with 扌"hand") "shake; stimulate"
- zhen 娠 (with "woman") "pregnant"
- shen 脤 (with 肉 "meat") "sacrificial meat"
This
chen 晨 or
chenxing 辰星 "dragon star" is an
asterismAsterism may refer to:* Asterism , a pattern of stars* Asterism , an optical phenomenon in gemstones* Asterism , a moderately rare typographical symbol denoting a break in passages...
in the traditional Chinese constellations, a morning star within the Azure Dragon that is associated with east and spring. Specifically, the "dragon star" is in the 5th and 6th lunar
Twenty-eight mansionsTwenty-eight mansions are the 28 mansions in Chinese astronomy.- Introduction :Ancient Chinese astronomers divided the sky ecliptic into four regions, each assigned a mysterious animal. They are Azure Dragon on the east, Black Tortoise on the north, White Tiger on the west, and Vermilion Bird ...
, with its
xin 心 "
HeartThe Heart mansion is one of the Twenty-eight mansions of the Chinese constellations. It is one of the eastern mansions of the Azure Dragon.- Asterisms :...
" and
wei 尾 "
TailThe Tail mansion is one of the Twenty-eight mansions of the Chinese constellations. It is one of the eastern mansions of the Azure Dragon.- Asterisms :...
" corresponding to the Western
constellationsConstellations is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal of critical and democratic theory. It is edited by Nadia Urbinati and Andrew Arato and published at the New School for Social Research...
of
AntaresAntares is a red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy and the sixteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky...
and
ScorpiusScorpius is one of the constellations of the zodiac; the associated astrological sign is called Scorpio. Its name is Latin for scorpion, and its symbol is . It lies between Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east...
.
Etymologies
Carr (1990:144-145) etymologically hypothesizes that the
chen < *
辰 phonetic series (using
Bernhard KarlgrenBernhard Karlgren was a Swedish sinologist, philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline...
's
Old ChineseOld Chinese , or Archaic Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese spoken from the Shang Dynasty , well into the Former Han Dynasty . There are several distinct sub-periods within that long period of time...
reconstructions) split between *
"dragon" and *
"thunder". The former words include aquatic
shen < *
蜃 "large shellfish; sea dragon", celestial
chen < *
晨 "dragon star", and possibly through dragon-emperor association,
chen < *
宸 "imperial palace; mansion". The latter ones, reflecting the belief that dragons cause rainfall and thunder, include
zhen < *
震 "thunder; shake",
zhen < *
振 "shake; scare", and
ting < *
d'ieng 霆 "thunderbolt".
Schuessler (2007:184, 459, 611) provides more refined reconstructions and etymologies:
- shen < * 蜃 "'Clam, oyster' … 'some kind of dragon'."
- chen < * 辰 "The 5th of the Earthly branches, identified with the dragon … cf. 蜃 'some kind of dragon'", which might be an Austro-Asiatic language loan from Vietnamese trăn or Mon klan "python".
- chen < * 晨 or 辰 "Time when life begins to stir: (1) 'early morning' … (2) "start of growing/agricultural season in the 3rd month; heavenly bodies that mark that time' … 'heavenly body', 'time'."
- zhen < * 振 or 震 "('To stir, be stirring':) 'to shake, rouse, quake' … 'to alarm, fear', 'scared', 'thunder', 'move'".
- zhen < 娠 "'Pregnant', 'become pregnant' … is derived from 'to shake, rouse, excite' (e.g., a grasshopper from hibernation, i.e., coming to life), hence lit. 'start stirring, moving' (of an embryo)."
Modern times
In the present day, the mythical
shen "clam-monster" is best known through the everyday words for "mirage; illusion", typically Chinese
haishishenlou 海市蜃樓, Korean
shingiru 신기루 蜃氣樓, and Japanese
shinkirō 蜃気楼.