Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c13.34

v2.c13.34

This view is confirmed by Ptolemy. He refers to the *apheterium*, immediately to the south of Paloura, where the vessels bound for the Malay Peninsula “ceased to follow the littoral and entered the high seas”². S. Lévi has shown that the city of Paloura, which played such an important part in the eastern ocean trade of India was the same as the famous city of Dantapura, in Kalinga, which figures so prominently in the Buddhist literature. Thus even in Ptolemy’s days there was no direct voyage from the Coromandel coast, but in addition to the coastal voyage along the Bay of Bengal from Tāmralipti, a direct voyage to the east was made from Paloura near modern Chicacole.¹ It is difficult, therefore, to accept the view, generally held on the authority of the Periplus, that there was a direct voyage between South India and the Far East in the first century A. D.²