Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India c2.41

c2.41

In the ninth chapter the author has thrown light on caravan and the goods they carried basing his information on the Jaina *chūrṇis*, *bhāshyas* and *niryuktis*. Caravans were divided into four categories and the goods they carried were of four kinds. The sixteen kinds of winds mentioned in the *Āvaśyaka chūrṇi* have been adopted from the nautical terminology which appears in the later Arabic literature. The *Jñātādharmā* uses the word *potapaṭṭana* for sea port, elsewhere *jalapaṭṭana* and *velātaṭa* have also been used for sea port. It is possible that *kāliyaka* stands for Zanzibar. When some sea merchants talked to their king about the striped horses or zebras of the place, then he specially commissioned them to bring some to him. The *Jñātādharmā* also gives a list of articles loaded on ships; mention may be made of certain musical instruments, toys and skinful of perfumed oil, which formed a part of the cargo. The list of the foreign female slaves in the *Antagaḍadasāo* is also interesting as it informs us that they came from the trans-Oxus country, Ferghana, Sri Lanka, Arabia, Balkh, Iran etc., and employed in the harems for service. This list includes many countries extending from Sri Lanka to the Pamirs and from there to Greece which indicates that part of the world with which India had trade and cultural relations in the early centuries of the Christian era.