28 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY PART II 



Sometimes it is difficult to put on all the marks after the daily morning bath. In such cases, 

 a single mudra mark, containing all the five mudras, is made to suffice. Some regard 

 the chakra mudra as sufficient on occasions of emergency." 



So far as I can learn the branding instruments which are employed to sear the two 

 chief symbols, chank and chakra, by means of heat are usually made of copper. In 

 other localities brands of different metals appear to be used as Risley (II, p. 339) states 

 that the Ramanuja, a Vaishnavite sect in Bengal, when undergoing the initiatory rite 

 (tapta-mudra) are branded with the chakra on the right shoulder and the chank on the 

 left, by means of a brand made of eight metals (ashta-dhatu) gold, silver, copper, 

 brass, tin, lead, iron, and zinc. 



Various deviations from the standard ceremonial exist in certain districts ; among 

 these is that followed by the Bedar or Boya caste of the Southern Deccan, a caste which 

 largely constituted the old fighting stock of this district. Among them the men are 

 branded on the shoulders by the priest of a Hanuman shrine with the sign of the chank 

 and of the chakra, in the belief that this will enable them to go to swarga (heaven). 

 Female Bedars who are branded become Basavis (temple women) and are dedicated to 

 a male deity and called Gandu Basavis or male Basavis (Thurston, I; p. 194). 



This branding of temple girls, or Deva-dasi as they are termed in the Tamil country, 

 with symbols of the chank and chakra is always an essential feature in the ceremonies 

 which mark their dedication to the god of their temple, whom thenceforward they serve 

 with dance and song. 



Allied to branding is tattooing. The Tandans of Malabar, a caste about the level 

 of the Tiyyans, adopt this method to show devotion to the deity, and among the religious 

 symbols worked into the skin of their arms is that of the chank (Thurston, VII, 10). 



(c) THE MENDICANT'S CONCH. 



Beggars throughout India occasionally use the chank shell as a musical instru- 

 ment, and with certain castes of religious mendicants it is an essential part of their pro- 

 fessional paraphernalia, so much so that a Tamil proverb likens things in continual 

 association to " the breech of the chank and the mouth of the mendicant." 



The Dasari, who belongs to a caste of Vaishnavite mendicants well represented in 

 the Madras Presidency, is often seen in North Arcot and the Southern Deccan, announcing 

 his arrival in a village by blasts on the chank-shell which in that part of the country is 

 one of his five insignia. In Telugu districts the Dasaris are more secular and less reli- 

 gious, and the caste is known as Sanku Dasari or vulgarly Sanku jadi, the chank-blowing 

 caste. 



A mendicant's conch sometimes has the apical orifice mounted in brass ; temple 

 conchs are usually without any ornamentation, but the Udipi temple owns one very 

 handsomely mounted in brass and this is sounded whenever the god (Krishna) is carried 

 in procession in the temple car. 



