THE CHANK BANGLE INDUSTRY. 
411 
bangle workshops formerly existed, to treat on the spot this product of the neigh- 
bouring sea. Why the seat of the bangle-cutting trade became transferred or limited 
to Bengal is obscure and may never be satisfactorily elucidated; I am, however, 
inclined to suggest the hypothesis that the decay of the industry in Tinnevelly may 
have been consequent upon the Muhammadan invasion. The date of the passing 
away of the chank-cutting industry I am inclined to put tentatively at about the 
fourteenth century, a time which marks the close of unchallenged Hindu supremacy 
in the south, the spoliation of the vast riches of the Pandyan cities by the Moslem 
and the heyday of Arab sea-power on this part of the Indian coast. With the 
depression and decay entailed by the loot and ruin of their enormously wealthy 
temples and long prosperous cities by the invaders under Malik Kafur, it is far from 
improbable that the particular trade here referred to became disorganized within the 
Pandyan realm and forced into a different channel, the whole of the shells being 
exported to Bengal to be cut there instead of being treated, at least in part, locally 
at the seat of the fishery. 
( b ) The Former Existence of Bangle Factories in the Deccan and in Gujarat 
and Kathiawar. 
I have been unable to obtain any evidence from ancient Indian writings of the 
existence elsewhere than in the extreme south of the country of any ancient custom 
of wearing bangles cut from chank shells. Probably such references do exist, and if 
this be so, I trust the present notes may elicit their quotation by scholars who are 
familiar with the ancient Sanscrit and Gujarati classics, the most probable sources 
of information. 
Fortunately, in this absence of written records, archaeology has important 
evidence to offer, and although it is difficult to date the greater portion of this testi- 
mony with any exactitude, it offers irrefutable proof that the industry of chank- 
cutting and the custom of wearing chank bangles had once much less restricted 
geographical range than at the present day. The largest collection of remains 
demonstrating this fact is the Foote collection of Indian prehistoric and protohistoric 
antiquities in the Madras Government Museum. This valuable series comprises 
several thousands of palaeolithic and neolithic implements and weapons, together 
with multitudinous fragments of pottery and other artifacts assigned to the neolithic 
and succeeding prehistoric periods. For us the main interest centres in the numerous 
fragments of chank bangles and chank workshop cuttings and waste represented in 
the collection. Many of these were found associated with undoubted neolithic stone 
implements, while others were mingled with potsherds of less readily determinable 
age. The collection includes worked specimens of bangles in a fragmentary condition 
from the following districts and provinces in India : — 
Mysore. 
Bellary. 
Anantapur. 
Kurnul. 
Hyderabad (Raichur Doab). 
Kistna. 
Gujarat. 
Kathiawar. 
