The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.244

v1.c19.s9.244

The little *aperçus* which we obtain from the Jātakas of the range and objective of such merchants’ voyages are so interesting as side-lights on early trafficking as to create regret at their scantiness. The overland caravans are sometimes represented as going ‘east and west’³, and across deserts that took days, or rather nights to cross, a ‘land-pilot’ (*thala-niyyāmaka*) steering during the cooler hours of darkness by the stars⁴. Drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers, and demons are enumerated as the dangers severally besetting this or that desert route⁵. Such caravans may have been bound from Benares, the chief industrial and commercial centre in early Buddhist days, across the deserts of Rājputāna westward to the seaports of Bharukaccha, the modern Broach⁶, and the sea board of Sovīra (the Sophir, or Ophir, of the Septuagint ?), and its capital Roruva⁷ or Roruka⁸. Westward of these ports there was traffic with Babylon, or Bāveru.