130 
the Dutch Government. Further particulars of this im- 
portant decision are given on page 33. 
(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). Inallthese 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 ofa 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 Bét 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 
