18 OKHAMANDAL MARINE ZOOLOGY— PART II 



elsewhere to tempt us to believe that at one time it was the general custom of all fully 

 Hinduised castes throughout India. Finds of fragments of chank-bangles in places 

 where the use of these ornaments is non-existent at the present day strengthen the theory. 

 Legendary lore can also be quoted in support. For instance, among the Balijas of 

 Telugu districts, who there constitute the chief trading caste, a legend is current (Thurston, 

 I, p. 137) that " on one occasion Siva wanted his consort Parvati to appear before him 

 in all her glory. But, when she stood before him, fully decorated, he laughed and said 

 that she was not as charming as she might be. On this, she prayed that Siva would 

 help her to become so. From his braid of hair Siva created a being who descended on 

 the earth, bearing a number of bangles and turmeric paste, with which Parvati adorned 

 herself. Siva, being greatly pleased with her appearance, told her to look at herself 

 in a looking-glass. The being who brought the bangles is believed to have been the 

 ancestor of the Gazula Balijas." 



The latter sub-division of the Balijas peddle glass bangles only at the present day, 

 but it is reasonable to suppose that before the discovery of glass, their stock in trade 

 consisted instead of chank bangles. It is indeed probable that the introduction of glass 

 dealt a heavy blow to the employment of the chank shell in feminine adornment in certain 

 districts, particularly, for instance, in those where, aS in Vizagapatam, glass factories 

 being established, glass bangles were put on sale at a fraction of the cost of the compara- 

 tively expensive chank ones, which require the expenditure of much time and labour 

 to render them attractive. 



Another legend, prevalent among the Sangukatti Idaiyans, the great pastoral or 

 shepherd caste of Tamil India, narrates that when Krishna desired to marry Rukmani, 

 her family insisted on marrying her to Sishupalen. When the wedding was about to 

 take place, Krishna carried ofE Rukmani and placed a bangle made of chank-shell on her 

 wrist (Thurston, II, p. 354). These particular Idaiyans belong to one of the sections 

 of this caste which to-day require their married women to wear these bangles — now a 

 very rare custom in South India. 



Indian sources give the barest indications of the traffic in chank shells that must 

 have been brisk for 3,000 years or more between the fisheries in the Gulf of Mannar 

 and on the Kathiawar coast and the inland nations of the Deccan and Hindustan. 



(2) Present Day Uses. 



(a) in religious ceremonial (inclubing marriage and death rltes), 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 incar- 



