110 Captain James Low on Bupp Ma and the Phrabat. 
five flowers of the Dak montha (of the Siamese) form the toes. The number 
alludes manifestly to the five Bupp,#as: while the five flowers may allude 
to those flowers * which appeared when the world had been created ; and 
which, having been deposited in safety by a Brahman, were afterwards dis- 
tributed, four to the 7\hakurs, and one to Sacya. The Bali account of the 
Phrabdt does not describe the types which form the toes; which accounts 
for the variation found in several Phrabdts, and favours the supposition that 
it was originally a mere hieroglyphical table. 
Whether the fanciful history of Paria HAz Sane, the shell king, which has 
been worked up by the Siamese into a poetical romance so called, has given 
rise to the veneration they entertain for the chank, I cannot tell. This king 
lived in a shell, his subjects following his example. I think the whole is 
connected with the account given by the late Colonel Wilford, of a tribe 
on the borders of Egypt who lived in caves with mouths like shells. The 
Siamese represent Paria Aranan as dwelling in a shell during one of his 
changes.t 
The conch was one of the precious things obtained by the gods from the 
ocean after they had churned it with the mountain Mandar. 
No. 53. 
Chattu Muk ha, “the four-faced,” meaning Brauma; who is called by the 
Siamese Prom, or Parama. Brauma is however supposed to have had 
five heads originally ; from whence may have arisen the belief of the five 
manifestations of the deity. 
The well-known story need scarcely be noticed in which Brauma falls 
in love with Ganca, who had sprung, like armed Paxvas, out of his head. 
Brauma turned away from his daughter three several times, at each of 
which a new head sprung forth. The four heads are deemed by 
Maurice symbolical of the four quarters of the world, or of the four 
elements. 
In this Phrabat he is pourtrayed with the peaked tiara, typical of the solar 
* Asiatic Researches, vol. v. 
+ Crisuna used the conch which he drew from the ocean in his search for two lost children; 
and the Jamabos, or mountain priests of Japan, as Kempfer tells us, employ a shell of the same 
species as an emblem of their sect. According likewise to Mr. Colebrooke’s account of the 
Jainas, the chank is a characteristic symbol of their twenty-second god, or Nemi Natu. 
” 
