Ill 



THE ROLE PLAYED BY THE CHANK IN INDIAN RELIGION AND LIFE 



(1). Lkgendary and Historical. 



When and how the cult of the chaiik as a religious symbol originated in India are 

 questions going back so far beyond any traditions now existing that the utmost diffi- 

 culty confronts us when we seek to find their solution. One main fact alone seems certain 

 and that is the non-Aryan origin of this symbol. The Aryan-speaking hordes which 

 descended upon the Punjab through the N.W. passes perhaps 2,000 years or more B.C., 

 certainly did not bring the custom with them. They, the warrior ploughmen and herds- 

 men of the plains of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, had never seen the sea; they knew 

 not as yet the deep sonorous boom of the snow-white chank — a note on a curved cattle- 

 horn was with them the signal between scattered bands, while their hymns tell us that 

 in music they used the drum, the flute and the lute. Vishnu, the God whose emblems 

 include the chank, is barely mentioned in the Rig- Veda and the few Vedic hymns to 

 him were probably composed after long intercourse had been established with the Dravi- 

 dians, the chief race whom the invaders found in possession of the new land. He is 

 almost certainly one of the gods borrowed fi'om the indigenous people as his complexion 

 is characteristically represented as dark-hued whenever his image is shown in colour. 



I am strongly of opinion that the key to the problem is to be sought in the custom 

 prevalent among animists — the worshippers of evil spirits — of employing noise to scare 

 the demons they fear. At the present day Bengali Hindus make a practice of sounding 

 the conch which each household keeps for religious rites whenever an eclipse or an earth- 

 quake occurs. Clearly this is a survival of the use of loud blasts on a shell to scare away 

 evil spirits — the demon intent on devouring the moon or the sun, or shaking in fury the 

 foundations of the world. This custom at once conferred religious significance upon the 

 shell whose noise frightens the evil spirit and restores peace ; thenceforward the sheU 

 would be honom'ed and held sacred. Probably it was associated with one particular god, 

 the prototype of Vishnu, and, with his adoption into the Aryan Pantheon, his emblem 

 and weapon against the powers of evil would accompany him, and become endowed 

 with still gi'eater and deeper religious significance. 



When the hungry swarms of Aryan tribesmen descended upon north-west India, 

 the whole land, with the exception of the north-east corner, was occupied by a long- 



