Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c13.319

v2.c13.319

This interesting passage has been the subject of a learned dissertation by M. Sylvain Lévi; and the readers are referred to his scholarly article for a detailed discussion of the various points arising out of it.³ Its chief importance, for our purpose, is the very comprehensive view it offers of the sea-going trade in ancient India. It describes twenty-four localities (Nos. 1-24) which the merchants visited by way of sea, and ten difficult routes (Nos. 25-34) which they had to follow on land, apparently after reaching the harbour on the sea-coast. Of the twenty-four localities, Nos. 15 to 24 evidently belonged to the western side of India and do not concern us here. Suvaṇṇabhūmi (No. 13), Vesuṅga (6), Verāpatha (7), and Takkola (2) correspond to Ptolemy's Chryse Chora, Besyngeitai, Berabai, and Takkola, the first mart in the Chryse Chersonesus. As such, Suvaṇṇabhūmi may be located in Burma and the same is perhaps true of Suvaṇṇabhūmi, mentioned in the Milindapañha along with Takkola. The Kālamukha (4) is mentioned as the name of a tribe both in Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata, and the country is to be placed on the Arakan coast. Java (8) can be easily identified as the well-known island of Java. Tamali (9) is the same as Tāmbraliṅga, referred to in a Sanskrit inscription discovered at Caiya in Malay Peninsula, and has to be placed in that region.¹ Suvaṇṇakūṭa (12) has been equated by Lévi with Suvarṇakuḍyaka which we have already discussed above. Tambapaṇṇi (14) is, of course, Ceylon. Gumba (1), Maraṇapāra (5), and Elavaddhana (11), are not known from any other source and cannot be identified for the present.