Bashe

Bashe () was a python-like Chinese mythological giant snake that ate elephants. The term bashe compounds ba "a proper name; tip, tail; crust; greatly desire; cling to; be near" and she "snake; serpent". The Chinese character 巴 for ba was graphically simplified from ancient Oracle bone script and Seal script pictograms of a long-tailed snake. In early Written Chinese usage, ba 巴 frequently referred to the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BCE – 256 BCE) state of Ba, which was located in present-day eastern Sichuan. In Modern Standard Chinese usage, ba 巴 often transcribes foreign loanwords such as ba 巴 "bar (unit)", Bali 巴黎 "Paris", or Guba 古巴 "Cuba". Ba 巴 is a variant Chinese character for ba 把 "grasp; handle", ba 笆 "bamboo; fence", or ba 芭 in bajiao 芭蕉 "banana" (using ba 巴 as the phonetic element with graphic radicals for 扌 "hand", 竹 "bamboo", and 艹 "plant"). Bashe not only names this mythical giant reptile but is also a variant Chinese name for the South Asian ran or mang "python" (and South American "boa constrictor" or African "mamba"). "Mythical draconyms often derive from names of larger reptilians", says Carr and "Since pythons usually crush their prey and swallow them whole, one can imagine Chinese tales about southern ran 蚺 'pythons' being exaggerated into legendarily-constipated bashe 'giant snakes' that ate an elephant every three years". In literary usage, bashe is found in the four-character idiom bashetunxiang 巴蛇吞象 (lit. "ba-snake gulping down an elephant") meaning "inordinately greedy; extremely insatiable". The earliest references to the legendary bashe 巴蛇 are in the Chuci and Shanhaijing, two Chinese classic texts containing Warring States period (475 BCE – 221 BCE) materials compiled during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). The Chuci is an anthology of Chinese poems (see Qu Yuan) from the southern state of Chu and it mentions bashe in the Tianwen 天問 "Heavenly Questions" section.