the: chank bangle industry. 
409 
ing to be inspired by Siva; in it he held the President up to ridicule on account of 
his caste trade in the following pungent lines : — 
P -t G*! c< — j cl^j n rv7 / {P CT 7 L\J ^ 
^ ^ — < T_/^ rj r\j /_j jj UJ lP _ €> e ltrzr~? 
(T) J] e~err T— jr. tfa JJ ^£TT> C") “X/ cnrr .^5 < 2-0 <n 5 -> 
1 -i — / n O n U-/ (5^ 4^7 <^r-7 Q _&> o_j c-rr . 
£ 
LJ 
<? 
(h .h 
which may be literally translated as follows : — 
c< Is Kiran fit to criticize my poem ? Spreading his knees wide, his joints loos- 
ened (by the labour), does he not saw chanks into sections, his ghee-smeared saw 
murmuring the while kir-kir ?” 
Besides the insult intended to be given, the verse contains a play on the Presi- 
dent’s name and the sound given out during the sawing of chank shells. 
The reply of Nakkirar was, “ Chank-cutting is indeed the calling of my caste; of 
that I am not ashamed. But of what caste is Sankara ? ” (one of the many names 
of Siva). ff We earn our livelihood by cutting chanks; we do not live by begging as 
he did ’ ’ — an allusion to the fable popularized by the Brahmans wherein Siva is 
represented as a mendicant seeking alms with a skull in his hand as begging bowl. 
Li R~7 S'* ^3 S~~ j\-' Jh O (gtq' h 
LJ Jh-> Lk> Le cS 1 — (TV — n cnrj Qjp O' __3 n 6L Jo __ 
- /5jJ uTO 
^ (Pfh ^ G O-J n ^ _a Q g-*-, fb 'e~*rr £ 
31 
eTTy W ^ n 
Dharmi’s description of a chank-cutter’s trade is wonderfully vivid in the original 
Tamil; in a dozen words he paints a realistic word-picture of a cutter’s workshop — 
the men seated on the floor with knees widely spread and depressed outwards almost 
to the ground to give free play to the great crescentic two-handled saw monoton- 
ously droning a single note as it cuts its way laboriously through the hard substance 
of the shell. 
Tradition has it that Nakkirar, the chank-cutter President of the Sangam, was a 
Parawa by caste. It would be most appropriate if this be correct as we have already 
seen that at the beginning of the Christian era chank-fishing and chank-cutting were 
among the important trades carried on in Korkai, the chief settlement of the Para- 
was in early days and the emporium then known to Greek sailors and traders as 
Kolkhoi. 
No Para was to-day are engaged in chank-cutting, although they still largely 
monopolize the shore industries of Tinnevelly, where they continue as from time 
immemorial to provide a large contingent of the divers required for the exploitation 
of both the Pearl and the Chank Fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar. 
It is noteworthy that though their women do not now wear chank bangles their 
