https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_snail

Thanks for opening up this topic. It’s a fascinating one.

The word chank comes of course from Sanskrit, shankha, and the chank shell is an important symbol and ritual object in all the great non-monotheistic religions that come originally from South Asia. I’ll attach below a Khmer (C12) bronze of Vishnu crossing the cosmic ocean, and in his upper left hand he holds - as almost always - a chank shell.

The chank shell was a symbol of water, and thence of purification, but it was also associated with the female genital organs and fertility, which may take us back to even earlier matriarchal cultures.

I don’t think there’s anything surprising about it appearing in Tibet as part of the spread of Buddhism. In earlier times already, huge quantities of cowries were transported over very long distances because they had come to be symbols of wealth, and monks or pilgrims would have felt honoured to dedicate years of their lives to obtaining objects of ritual significance for their monastic centres.

Cheers,

Will

i have been aware that the chank shell is one of the 8 auspicious symbols... as depicted in various tibetan contexts .. and used to have a carved bone bead netted lama-apron that featured all 8 of them - but it got sold. i have archived photos but they are large and i never yet found a way to reduce the size so i can share here. only new images from my phone are usually OK.

if you have my book from 2016 "Beads... a collector's guide" its shown on P. 23 at the start of the Tibet chapter.

Yes, the ritual symbols and practices are important, of course, but we shouldn't ever forget the sheer pleasure in the shells themselves. From very early on, people in southeast Asian cultures were using them for personal adornment. I'll attach a couple of examples of a bangle and an ear ring that were found in a neolithic site about 4.000 years old near Lopburi in Central Thailand.

I think the structure of the shell in cross-section connects with an essential human attraction to spiral patterns. The spiral leads you deeper into the centre, or out to infinity; or it can connect to an adjoining spiral and lead you back into the centre again - which we find in the patterned borders of Ban Chiang bronzes.

Which came first, the ornament or the ritual object? I don't think we know for sure, but in a neighbouring grave at the Lopburi site a pair of intact calcified chank shells were found, so maybe by that time already they were being valued for more than their decorative qualities.

W.

i have been able to give a single bead to each family member who might need encouragement, blessings or extra luck at this moment...

W

They made gold cowries in Zhou dynasty China too. I've never been able to get hold of one, but I have "cowries" from that period (early first millennium BCE) made from wood, mother of pearl, bone, bronze and moulded clay, and a very nice pair carved from the best white jade (nephrite). I imagine they were worn as amulets.

W.

Sorry???

The strands of chank shell were represented as Naga along with everything ethnographic that came out of the Northeast Indian region sourced in Nepal.