^72:1 The meaning of gandhapancangulikam is uncertain. Perhaps a garland in which sprouts or twigs were arranged radiating like the fingers of a hand. See Morris in J. P. T. S., 1884, s. v. See vol. i. p. 71 for a different rendering; but there gandhena pancangulikam datva seems rather to mean "making five-finger wreaths with scent." The spread hand is in many places a symbol used to avert the evil eye. In some villages of India it is marked on the house walls (North Ind. N. and Q., i. 42); it is carved on Phoenician tombstones (see those in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris); and I have seen it in all parts of Syria, on the houses of Jews, Christians, and Moslems.

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