HORNELL— THE INDIAN CONCH 29 



(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 chank is then buried beneath the first stone laid. An old reference to this 

 occurs in a petition quoted by Wheeler {fide Thurston, III, p. 147) from two natives of 

 Madras, in connection with the founding of a village called Chintadrepettah, now a 

 populous division of Madras City. The entry runs : — " Expended towards digging a 

 foundation where chanks were buried with accustomary ceremonies." Roman 

 Catholic converts from low castes follow this custom, as well as Hindus ; in Tuticorin, 

 if a Roman Catholic Parayan desires to build a house, the carpenter employed by him 

 chooses an auspicious day by reference to a native calendar, a chank is bought in the 

 bazaar and on the day chosen, having dug a foundation trench and prepared at the 

 bottom a bed of coral stone and mortar, the chank is laid thereon. In the cavity of the 

 shell small fragments of five metals (panjalokam), gold, silver, copper, iron and lead, 

 are placed, turmeric and sandalwood water is sprinkled over, and then the whole is hidden 

 under a mass of sweet-smelling flowers. The ceremony is ended ; the first stone may now 

 be lowered into place upon the chank and its contents, and good luck is beUeved to 

 be assured to him who will inhabit the house. 



It may, however, happen that in spite of every precaution, an inauspicious site 

 appears to have been chosen as shown by a sequence of misfortunes happening to the 

 householder. In such cases Hindus may perform a special ceremony called Chank- 

 usthabanam to remedy the evil. A chank-shell is filled with water and incantations 

 made for forty-five days. At the end of this period of propitiation, the chank is buried 

 under the house wall. (Winslow, " Tamil and Enghsh Dictionary," p. 390, Madras 1862.) 



Among the Parawa caste living in Tuticorin and other coast towns and villages 

 in Tinnevelly and Ramnad, misfortune is often sought to be averted from the individual 

 by almost completely burying a chank shell in the floor of the hall {kudam), about two 

 feet on the inner side of the doorway to the street. A small portion of the back of the 

 shell shows as a patch of white on the surface of the floor. The explanation of the 

 custom current among Parawas is that the shell is so placed that when an inmate leaves 



