Shiva Shells: Sham Shells and Actual Provenance
Some weeks ago I ordered a cute, large white cabochon pendant of polished snail shell, with a flat white face with a brown spiral, and a convex milky brown side. I’d stumbled on it in a favourite Etsy store, and the listing explained it was a “Shiva shell”.
If one searches for “Shiva shell” now, one will find metaphysical retailers extolling its use in opening the third chakra located in the solar plexus and its supposd eassociation with the Hindu god Shiva. Gemporia explains it “is a stunning natural gem whose pattern is completely made by Mother Nature” (which is true for most precious stones… Goldstone and aqua aura quartz being the two popular manmade precious stones that come to mind), and various websites mentioned the shell was popular in the Victorian era as jewellery brought home by British seafarers.
I’ve found no historical or Hindu sources for the former, and as for the latter claim, all such pages fail to mention that it was the eyeball side that was on display, not the whorl. One seller somewhat embarrassingly refers to the gastropods their pieces are derived from as “Turbo snails” (which is like saying “Canis dogs”) and a wholesaler claims that the species is “Operculum snail” (which is like saying a lucky rabbit’s foot comes from the species “Foot rabbit”).
The earliest example of operculum whorl jewellery I found is dated to as late as 2008; a pendant of 2.85 cm diameter fashioned by Marcus Bulstrode of Australia. On the other hand, the eye-like opercula of Turbo argyrostomus have been sold to pilgrims visiting the Ramanathaswamy Temple in Tamil Nadu, India, dedicated to Shiva (there we are!) as “moon discs” (ambiliman in Tamil) since at least 1917. Note that the opercula of this species is completely different from the opercula marketed as “Shiva Eye” or “Shiva shells”: the inner face is a dark coffee brown with five (not four) burnt whorls, and the convex side is yellowish with dark greenish-brown “pupils” and a narrow marginal orange line.
I have not been able to find any exact source for any “Shiva shell” sold online, but the cinnamon-swirl-in-white whorl with cappuccino convex surface operculum that is most popular likely comes from several different species of sea snail, depending on market. One retailer listing “Cat’s eye shells” sources them from the Turbo castanea population in Florida, a species that is found throughout the Western Atlantic around the Gulf of Mexico. Italian jewellers call their opercula jewellery “Eye of Saint Lucia” (Occhio di Santa Lucia) and derive theirs from the beautiful ruddy Bolma rugosa, which is found off the coasts of Portugal and Greece. (I have never seen this species of snail used for “Shiva shell” jewellery.) Far from the “shallow beds of Thailand and Indonesia” that Anglo “Shiva shells” hail!
Other uses of opercula: the famous emerald “cat’s eye” of Turbo smaragdus features in a Maori legend of the cannibalistic thunder deity Whaitiri, whose sleeping grandsons lay opercula on their eyelids to trick her into thinking they’re wide awake, and were used in traditional Maori art to form the eyes of their depictions of many atua (great or powerful spirits, such as the aforementioned Whaitiri). The opercula of other species of sea snails are powdered and used as fragrance fixatives in Chinese and Japanese incense (Purpura panama and perhaps another species), and was likely an aromatic ingredient in the consecrated incense burnt by the Ancient Jews up till the First Jewish-Roman War in the year 70 (probably Tricornis tricornis).
Really, any piece of jewellery meant to symbolise Shiva’s invisible third eye can be labelled “Shiva’s Eye”. It looks like the “Shiva shell” has some real provenance in actual pilgrim’s souvenirs at one temple dedicated to Shiva, which some passing enterprising Western saw appealing as well—if only you flipped them the other way.
Anyway, I just wanted to know what kinda snail my pendant came from, so that’s why I went to all this trouble. …And I still didn’t find out what species my shell came from. Darn.