126 



him, fully decorated, he laughed and said that she was 

 not as charming- as she might be. On this, she prayed 

 that Siva would help her to become so. From his braid 

 of hair Siva created a being who descended on the earth, 

 bearing a number of bangles and turmeric paste, with 

 which Parvati adorned herself. Siva, being greatly 

 pleased with her appearance, told her to look at herself 

 in a lookino-o-lass. The beino- who brouoht the bang-les, 

 is believed to have been the ancestor of the Gazula 

 Balijas." 



The latter sub-division of the Balijas peddle glass 

 bangles only at the present day, but it is reasonable to 

 suppose that before the discovery of glass, their stock 

 in trade consisted instead of chank-bangles. It is 

 indeed probable that the introduction of glass dealt a 

 heavy blow to the employment of the chank-shell in 

 feminme adornment in certain districts, particularly for 

 instance in those where, as in Vizagapatam, glass 

 factories being established, glass bangles were put on 

 sale at a fraction of the cost of comparatively expensive 

 chank ones, which require the expenditure of much time 

 and labour to render them attractive. 



Another legend, prevalent among the Sangukatti 

 Idaiyans, the great pastoral or shepherd caste of Tamil 

 India, narrates that when Krishna desired to marry 

 Rukmani, her family insisted on marrying her to 

 Sishupalen. When the wedding was about to take 

 place, Krishna carried off Rukmani and placed a bangle 

 made of chank-shell on her wrist (Thurston, II, p. 354). 

 These particular Idaiyans belong to one of the sections 

 of this caste which to-day require their married women 

 to wear these bangles — now a very rare custom in 

 South India. 



Indian sources give the barest indications of the 

 traffic in:, chank-shells that must have been brisk for 

 3,000 years or more between the fisheries in the Gult of 

 Mannar and on the Kathiawar coast and the inland 

 nations of the Deccan and Hindustan. In another 

 !^ection — that dealino- with the chank-banoie industry, 

 oroofs are o-iven from archseoloo-ical sources and from 

 ancient Tamil writings of the great antiquity of this 

 trade and industry. Apart from this evidence we have 

 nothing of importance till we come to the sixth century 



