THE SACRED CHANK 

 OF INDIA 



BY 



JAMES HORNELL. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Until the present time no monographic account has 

 been attempted of the Sacred Chank or Conch {Turbi- 

 ne II a pyru77i, Linn ) in its intricate and intimate relation- 

 ship to ahnost every phase of Hindu Hfe ; scanty too are 

 the casual references scattered through the immense 

 mass of literature that attempts to chronicle and explain 

 the g'rowth of present-day Indian customs. The collec- 

 tion and co-ordination of the material now presented to 

 the reader has been a task of no light character and I 

 am deeply conscious of the incompleteness of the whole, 

 of the many gaps I am unable to fill up and of how inade- 

 quate is my scholarship to deal with certain aspects of 

 the subject in a really satisfactory manner. However 

 we are well aware how often the foolhardy step in where 

 angels fear to tread and as I have occasionally seen 

 eminently successful resuhs attend on such precipitate 

 recklessness I trust that at least a modicum of success 

 may crown the attempt I make in the following pages to 

 open up a by-path in the life and history of the Indian 

 world. Almost every day some new fact comes to my 

 knowledge emphasizing the large place in the ordinary 

 life of the people taken by this shell, but as other 

 enquiries call for my attention, with some reluctance I 

 feel compelled to cry a halt and to present the material 

 already collected in the best form I am able to cast it, 

 leaving for others the task of rounding the corners and 

 filling in interstices. 



Several interesting problems remain partly or wholly 

 unsolved. Among others may be mentioned {a) the 

 reasons for the cessation and disappearance of the chank 

 bangle industry from the South of India, the Deccan, 



