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the religious symbols worked into the skin of their arms 
is that of the chank (Thurston, VII., 10). 
(c) THE MENDICANT’S CONCH. 
Beggars throughout India occasionally use the chank 
shell as a musical instrument, and with certain castes of 
religious mendicants it is an essential part of their pro- 
fessional paraphernalia, so much so that a Tamil proverb 
likens things in continual association to “the breech of 
the chank and the mouth of the mendicant.” 
The Dasari, who belongs to a caste of Vaishnavite 
mendicants well represented in the Madras Presidency, 
is often seen in North Arcot and the Southern Deccan, 
announcing his arrival in a village by blasts on the 
chank-shell which in that part of the country is one of 
his five insignia. In Telugu districts the Dasaris are 
more secular and less religious, and the caste is known 
as Sanku Dasari or vulgarly Sanku jadi, the chank-blow- 
ing caste, 
A mendicant’s conch sometimes has the apical orifice 
mounted in brass; temple conchs are usually without 
any ornamentation, but the Udipi temple owns one very 
handsomely mounted in brass and this is sounded when- 
ever the god (Krishna) is carried in procession in the 
temple car (Pl. XVIL., fig. 1). 
(d) DEDICATION OF TEMPLES AND HOUSES. 
Wherever a new temple is built, or when a new 
shrine or god is established and added to the number 
already there, its dedicatory ceremonies include as one 
of the most important a special libation to the god from 
the mouths of 108 chanks, or better still, from 1,008 
chanks if so many can be afforded, filled with water and 
flowers. 
The building of an ordinary house in the Tamil 
country must also have its ceremonial dedication at the 
time the foundation trenches are dug, though among low 
caste people the rite consists merely of a superstitious 
act to ensure good luck or to baulk the evil eye. It is 
carried out with the help of the sacred chank which thus 
is seen to touch the lives of the people at every point 
from the cradle to the grave. Before a single stone in 
the foundation is laid, the ceremony is carried out on 
a day carefully chosen as being highly auspicious, A 
