64 
to flourish at the present day, should be of modern 
growth. 
With regard to the third known seat of the industry 
in ancient times, that which flourished in the early 
centuries of the Christian era in the Tinnevelly district, 
its geographical location in the coastal section of the 
Pandyan kingdom made it the natural centre and home 
of a great chank- cutting industry. Its Pandyan sove- 
reigns were from time immemorial overlords of the Pearl 
and Chank Fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay, 
the most important source of supply of the raw material 
then and now, and it is a curious vagary of trade that the 
present seat of the industry should be situated 1,500 
miles from the scene of the fishery. 
From the fact that among a few widely separated 
castes, sub-castes and tribes. “of the extreme south of 
India, ‘including among others the Kotas of the Nilgiri 
Hills and certain sections of the Vellalans and Idaiyans 
in the inland Coimbatore district, the custom prevails of 
wearing chank bangles for ceremonial reasons, we may 
also reasonably infer the former wider prevalence of 
the custom. Indeed it is probable that the custom was 
at one time prevalent throughout a large section of 
Southern India. 
Kathiawar and adjacent Gujarat are also both mari- 
time provinces and this geographical situation is the key 
to the location of the chank-bangle industry in those pro- 
vinces in early times ; the coast of Kathiawar is the only 
considerable source of chank shells apart from the Gulf 
of Mannar and Palk Bay. No chank-cutting is now 
done either in Kathiawar or Gujarat; the women there 
have abandoned their former habit of wearing chank 
bangles and all the shells fished in this locality are 
exported from Bombay to Bengal where they are known 
in trade as “Sarti” shells, Surat having been the port of 
shipment prior to the rise of Bombay. 
Why the Southern Deccan should once have been the 
home of a shell-cutting industry is not so easy of explan- 
ation, seeing that it is situated in the heart of the 
country and distant from 400 to 500 miles from the 
nearest sources of supply (Rameswaram and the Tanjore 
coast). Possibly the location of this trade in the Deccan 
was due to the superior skill as craftsmen of the people 
in these districts inherited from stone-using ancestors 
