Note 88 — Chapter IX · THE WORSHIP OF TREES

Sir W. H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (Westminster, 1893), i. 147-149, 175. The Salagrama is commonly perforated in one or more places by worms or, as the Hindoos believe, by the legendary insect Vajrakita or by Vishnu himself. The value of the fossil shell depends on its colour, and the number of its convolutions and holes. The black are prized as gracious embodiments of Vishnu; the violet are shunned as dangerous avatars of the god. He who possesses a black Salagrama keeps it wrapped in white linen, washes and adores it daily. A draught of the water in which the shell has been washed is supposed to purge away all sin and to secure the temporal and eternal welfare of the drinker. These fossils are found in Nepaul, in the upper course of the river Gandaka, a northern tributary of the Ganges. Hence the district goes by the name of Salagrami, and is highly esteemed for its sanctity; a visit to it confers great merit on a man. See Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine (Paris, 1782), i. 173 sq.; J. A. Dubois, Mœurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l’Indie (Paris, 1825), ii. 446-448; Sir W. H. Sleeman, op. cit. i. 148 sq., with the editor’s notes; Monier Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, pp. 69 sq.; G. Watt, Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vi. Part II. (London and Calcutta, 1893) p. 384; W. Crooke, op. cit. ii. 164 sq.; Indian Antiquary, xxv. (1896) p. 146; G. Oppert, On the Original Inhabitants of Bharatavarsa or India (Westminster and Leipsic, 1893), pp. 337-359; id., “Note sur les Sālagrāmas,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris, 1900), pp. 472-485. The shell derives its name of ammonite from its resemblance to a ram’s horn, recalling the ram-god Ammon.