The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.255

v1.c19.s9.255

merchants¹. According to the Jātaka it was practicable to attain to any of these ports starting from up the Ganges, not only from Champā (or Bhāgalpur, about 350 miles from the sea) but even from Benares. Thus the defaulting woodwrights mentioned above² reach an ocean island from the latter city; Prince Mahājanaka sets out for Suvaṇṇabhūmi from Champā³, and Mahinda travels by water from Patna to Tāmalitti, and on to Ceylon⁴. It is true that the word *samudda*, sea, is occasionally applied to the Ganges⁵, nevertheless, if the foregoing stories be compared with the *Saṅkha Jātaka*⁶, it becomes probable that the open sea is meant in both. In this the hero, while shipwrecked, washes out his mouth with the salt water of the waves during his self-imposed fast. Again, in the *Silānisaṁsa Jātaka*, a sea-fairy as helmsman brings ‘passengers for India’ by ships ‘from off the sea to Benares by river’⁷. Other traders are found coasting round India from Bharukaccha to Suvaṇṇabhūmi⁸, doubtless putting in at a Ceylon port; for Ceylon was another bourne of oversea commerce, and one associated with perils around which Odyssean legends had grown up⁹. The vessels, according to Jātaka tales, seem to have been constructed on a fairly large scale, for we read of ‘hundreds’ embarking on them, merchants or emigrants. The numbers have of course no statistical value; but the current conceptions of shipping capacity are at least interesting.