120 



Here too we hear for the first time the name Pan- 

 chajanya given to the conch of Krishna, King of the 

 Yadavas, who had espoused the Pandavan cause. 

 Around this famous shell many legends have gathered 

 and now we see it held on hio-h in most fiofures of Vishnu, 

 who is considered by Hindus to have been re-incarnated 

 in Krishna, the wise and good king of the Yadavas. Ac- 

 cording to one legend Panchajanya was originally the 

 shell home of a terrible marine demon, Panchajana, so 

 named as he was a foe to the five kinds of beings ['ana), 

 to wit, gods, men, gandharvas, serpents and ghosts or 

 non- incorporated spirits. Panchajana lived on the sea 

 bottom and at last filled the measure of his misdeeds by 

 seizing the son of Sandipani, who had taught Krishna 

 the use of arms. The God, tearless of consequences, 

 rushed to the help of the child assuming the form ot a 

 fish and after a terrible struggle vanquished the demon 

 and brought away his shell as a trophy, since accounted 

 one of the emblems of Vishnu and Krishna. 



Tod, the author of the famous Annals of Rajasthan, 

 in his " Travels in Western India" published 1839, in 

 describino;- his visit to Dwarka and its neiohbourhood 

 gives a variant of this story and as the passage is most 

 interesting no apology is needed for its reproduction in 

 full. Under date January i, 1823, he writes, "Crossed 

 over to the Pirates' isle, emphatically called Bate, or 

 'the island,' but in the classic traditions of the Hindu, 

 Sankhodwara, or ' the door of the shell,' one of the most 

 sacred spots of his faith. It was here that Crishna '- or 

 Kanya acted the part of the Pythian Apollo, and 

 redeemed the sacred books, slaying his hydra foe, 

 Takshac, who had purloined and concealed them in 

 one of those gigantic shells whence the island has 

 its name. The whole history of Kanya, or Crishna, 

 who assumed the form of Vishnu, is allegorical, but 

 neither devoid of interest nor incapable of solution. 

 There is no part of their mythology more easy of illus- 

 tration than this, which is allusive to the sectarian war- 

 fare carried on at this period between the new sect of 



* Tod noles " Kanya, or \'ishnii, ri.-si;mbli;s the sun-t;ocl of ihe Eijyi)tians in 

 name as well as symbols. Kan was one name of the sun in Kgypt, and his 

 aajile head is .1 well-known type." With regard to the extract given in the text, 

 it has to be remembered that Tod's mythological explanations are not always 

 reliable. 



