Shen (clam-monster)

While early Chinese dictionaries treat shèn as a general term for "mollusca", the Erya defines it as a large yáo (珧) "shellfish", "clam", "scallop", or "nacre".

Chinese classics variously record that shèn was salted as a food (in the Zuo Zhuan), named a "lacquered wine barrel" used in sacrifices to earth spirits (in the Rites of Zhou), and its shells were used to make hoes (in the Huainanzi) and receptacles (in the Zhuangzi).

They also record two shèn-compounds related with funerals: shènchē (蜃車, with cart or carriage) "hearse" (Rites of Zhou, Guo Pu's commentary notes shèn means large, shell-like wheel rims) and shèntàn (蜃炭) "oyster-lime; white clay", which was especially used as mortar for mausoleum walls (Zuo Zhuan, Rites of Zhou).

"It is not clear why these mussels were placed into the tombs," he admits, possibly either as a sacrifice to the earth god (compare shèn 脤 below) or "the shell lime was used simply for a purifying and protective effect.

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 Indian influence, a nāga.

The Shuowen Jiezi defines gé (using a graphic variant with the hé 合 phonetic above the radical) as the "category of shèn", which includes three creatures that transform within the sea.

[3] The Yuèlíng 月令 "Monthly Commands" chapter of the Book of Rites[4] lists sparrows and pheasants transforming into shellfish during the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar.

In Shuangjiang the last month of autumn, "[jue 爵, a rebus character for que 雀 "sparrow"] Small birds enter the great water and become [gé 蛤] mollusks", and in (Lidong) the first month of winter, "[zhi 雉 "pheasant"] Pheasants enter the great water and become [shen 蜃] large mollusks."

Specifically, the "dragon star" is in the 5th and 6th lunar Twenty-eight mansions, with its xin 心 "Heart" and wei 尾 "Tail" corresponding to the Western constellations of Antares and Scorpius.

Axel Schuessler[13] provides a different set of reconstructions and etymologies: In the present day, the mythical shèn is best known in East Asia through the everyday words for mirage or illusion (Chinese: 海市蜃樓, pinyin: Hǎishìshènlóu; Japanese: 蜃気楼, Shinkirō; Korean: 蜃氣樓, RR: Singiru).