CONCHOLOGY. 



is imagined to have confided a portion of his power. If the Chank 

 be the object of their devotion in health, so also it is the object of 

 then- superstitions in sickness and in death. The medicine adminis- 

 tered by the Priest to his patient in the time of illness, from the spout 

 of one of these shells, is considered of greater efficacy than if taken 

 from any other drinking vessel; that from the spout of a reversed 

 shell has a reputation inestimable. These reversed shells occur so 

 rarely, that if at any time some happy fortunate of the fishing tribe 

 of Hindoos should be so lucky as to find one, he is indeed considered 



An Indian painting, mentioned by Mr. Edward Moor, the author of the 

 Hindoo Pantheon, presents us with another deity, Sivi, who holds the 

 Chank Shell in one of his four hands, and the antelope (moon) in another. 



There is also an Indian painting of Devi, who appears holding a Chank 

 Shell, furnished on each side with a lateral lappit or wing : this symbol he 

 holds in one hand, and the wheel, the emblem of the universe, in the other ; 

 and in a bronze of Vishnu, in the India House, we find the Chank Shell 

 ornamented in a similar manner. 



We have seen another indian painting, in which, not only the Chank 

 Shell is furnished on each side with alae, or wings, but an expanded flower 

 of six petals is placed upon its pinnacle. This shell, if we may judge from 

 its outline, is of that kind which has the spire depressed. Lord Valentia is 

 in possession of a bronze cast, in which Vishnu appears reclined upon his 

 couch of serpents, attended by Lakshmi and Satyavama, (eternity) in which 

 the shell is also winged, and appears to be of that kind in which the beak is 

 elongated or produced; and if this conjecture be correct, it will appear that 

 the Hindoos venerate indiscriminately, and probably as the same shell, each 

 of those three varieties of Voluta Pyrum, which we have mentioned in another 

 part of this description. Our limits will only permit us to observe that we 

 believe we may add with some degree of certainty, that the reversed shell, 

 the more immediate object of our present dissertation, may sometimes 

 appear also : there is in the temple of Vistveswat-a, at Benares, a sculpture 

 of Surya, the Indian personification of the sun, seated in his chariot driven 

 by Aruna, in which the Chank Shell held in his right hand appears to have 

 the aperture on the left side instead of the right, as in the usual growth of 

 the shell. If this be not an oversight of the copyist ( Mr. Moor) the circum- 

 stance deserves peculiar notice. 



