The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s5.36

c7.s5.36

⁴ Yule (Cathay, I. 56) notices that about this time the lower Euphrates was called Hind or India, but this seems to have been an ancient practice. Rawlinson in J. R. G. S. XXVII. 186. As to the extent of the Persian trade at this time, see Renaud's Mémoire Sur l'Inde, 124. In the fifth and sixth centuries, besides the Persian trade, there was an active Arab trade up the Persian gulf and the Euphrates to Hira on the right or west bank of the river, not far from the ruins of Babylon. There was also much traffic with Obollah near the mouth of the joint river not far from Basra. Reinaud's Abu-l-fida, ccclxxxii. Obollah is also at this time (A.D. 400-600) noticed as the terminus of the Indian and Chinese vessels which were too large to pass up the river to Hira. (Ditto and Yule's Cathay, lxxvii. 55.) So close was its connection with India that the Talmud writers always speak of it as Hindike or Indian Obillah (Rawlinson in J. R. G. S. XXVII. 186). According to Masudi (915) Obollah was the only port under the Sassanian kings (Prairies d'Or, III. 164). McCrindle (Periplus, 103; compare Vincent, II. 377) identifies it with the Apologos of the Periplus (A.D. 247) which he holds took the place of Ptolemy's (A.D. 150) Teredon or Diridotus. Reinaud (Ind. Ant. VIII. 330) holds that Obollah is a corruption of the Greek Apologos, a custom house. But Vincent's view (II. 355) that Apologos is a Greek form of the original Obollah or Obollegh seems more likely. In Vincent's opinion (Ditto, II. 356) Obollah was founded by the Parthians. At the time of the Arab conquest of Persia (637) Abillah is mentioned as the port of entry at the mouth of the Euphrates (J. R. A. S. XII. 208). In spite of the rivalry of the new Arab port of Basra, Obollah continued a considerable centre of trade. It is mentioned by Tabari in the ninth century (Reinaud's Abu-l-fida, ccclxxxii.): Masudi (913) notices it as a leading town (Prairies d'Or, I. 230-231); Idrisi (1135) as a very rich and flourishing city (Jaubert's Ed. I. 369); and it appears in the fourteenth century in Abu-l-fida (Reinaud's Abu-l-fida, 72). It was important enough to give the Persian gulf the name of the Gulf of Obollah (D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale, III. 61). According to D'Herbelot when he wrote (about 1670) Obollah was still a strong well peopled town (Ditto). The importance of the town and the likeness of the names suggest that Obollah is the Abulamah from which came the Persian or Parthian Harpharan of Abulamah who records the gift of a cave in Kárli inscription 20. This identification supports the close connection by sea between the Parthians and the west coast of India in the centuries before and after the Christian era.