I30 



the Dutch Government. Further particulars of this im- 

 portant decision are given on page 2,3' 



{2( PRESENT DAY USES. 



[a) In religious ceremonial (including marriage 



AND DEATH RITES), AND VULGAR SUPERSTITION. 



We have already seen that the chank is one of the 

 two most important symbols — the other being the wheel 

 or chakram — associated by Hindus with Vishnu, the 

 second person in the Brahmanic trinity or Trimurthi. 

 The majority of the avatars or incarnations of Vishnu are 

 also occasionally represented as holding a chank in the 

 hand : Matsya in the form of a fish, Kurma the tortoise, 

 Varaha the boar, and Narsingha the man-lion, are avatars 

 sometimes sculptured holding Vishnu's chank : more fre- 

 quently Krishna is thus depicted. Narayana, the god 

 dwelling in the sun, another form of Vishnu, is similarly 

 represented in human form with a chank in one hand and 

 a discus (chakram) in the other. In rare instances Siva 

 is also depicted as holding a chank in one hand as in an 

 engraving by Jaganatha Ananta in a Sanskrit edition of 

 the Dharmasindhu ( Annales du Musee Guimet, Vol. VII, 

 1884). In all these instances the chank represented is of 

 the sinistral or left-handed form, a rarity so choice and 

 valuable as to be worthy to form an adornment of a god. 

 No more fitting gift to a deity can be imagined ; as the 

 symbol of the god who divides with Siva the worship of 

 the Hindu world, as a production of nature so scarce 

 as not to appear once in several millions of normally 

 shaped shells and as an emblem of purity, could Hindu 

 find more fitting offering at the shrine of his god ? Thus 

 it is that the pious wealthy have from time to time 

 dedicated these shells to favourite temples — particularly 

 to those that are in high esteem at centres of Hindu 

 pilgrimage. The sacred land of Kathiawar, associated 

 with the later life of Krishna, is an instance in point ; 

 while in Bet in 1905, I found richly ornamented 

 sinistral chanks in the Shank Narayan, Lakshmi and 

 Satya Bhamaji temples. (Plates I and XV.) That 

 in the last named is a particularly large and handsome 

 shell, probably the finest sinistral chank in existence, and 

 consequently an almost priceless treasure. The shell 



