Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India c2.44

c2.44

In the 7th-8th century Indian trade developed further. In the very beginning we find Bāṇa decorating the earth with the auspicious necklace (*maṅgalakamālā*) made of eighteen strands. He also imagines about *sarvadvīpāntarasañchārī pādalepa* (*Harshacharita*). By the eighth century the Arabs proved very strong competitors of Indians. The horse trade in this country passed entirely into their hands and the Sanskrit names for horses were gradually being replaced by their Arabic equivalents. Haribhadra who wrote the *Samarāichchakahā* in the eighth century, used for the first time the Arabic term *vollāha*. After him Hemachandra discusses the indigenous names of horses as adopted from the Arabic nomenclatures. He even did not know that *vollāha*, *serāha*, *kokāha*, *gīyāha* etc., were foreign words. He regarded them as Indian and tried to trace their fanciful etymologies from Sanskrit (*Abhidhana-Chintamani* IV.30.3-7). This clash between India and the Arab world increased with hurricane force and by the eleventh century it extended as far as Kāśī. In the Deccan, while the Rāshtrakūṭas were friendly to the Arabs in the 8th-9th century the Gurjara-Pratīhāras of the north faced the situation boldly and were feared by foreigners. In the 11th-12th century the Chauhāns and Gāhaḍavālas acted as bulwark against the foreign invaders, but in these wars of survival the most glorious part was played by the Hindu Shāhis of the Panjab and Kabul. With their defeat, however, the gates of northern India lay open. Even then it took almost 450 years for the Islamic forces to reach Kāśi from Sindh, while other countries fell like a house of cards before the advancing forces of Islam.