Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c11.61

c11.61

After this, the traveller arrived at the Tamil country, Damirike¹. The chief ports mentioned are Muziris, in the country of Kerobothra or Keralaputra, the Western Tamil kingdom, and Nelkynda, in the kingdom of Pāṇḍya (Pandion) or Madurā. Muziris, as we have already seen, was shunned by travellers on account of bad anchorage and the pirates. It is almost certainly Muyiri-kotta, the modern Cranganore². Nelkynda (Nil-kantha, perhaps) was somewhere in the Cochin backwaters. At the mouth of the backwaters stood Barake, the port mentioned by Pliny. Nelkynda became about this time the most important of the Indian ports. This was partly due to the blockade of the Northern Deccan coast by the ships of Broach. The chief reason, however, is to be sought in the pepper-trade, for which, after the epoch-making discovery of Hippalus, it became the chief port. After this, it completely eclipsed even Broach³. The exports of Nelkynda were most multifarious. Pepper and other condiments, drugs like spikenard and malobathrum, jewels like beryls, pearls, diamonds and sapphires, ivory and silk from Bengal, and tortoise-shell from the Golden Chersonese, were the chief. As we have already noticed, the enormous extent of the trade with Southern India in the first century A.D. is evidenced by the great numbers of Roman coins found there. There seems little doubt that eventually regular colonies of Roman traders sprang up in the Madras Presidency. The Peutinger Tables represent a temple of Augustus at Muziris. There was a "Yavana" colony at the mouth of the Kāviri river. Ptolemy tells of meeting people who had resided in the Madurā district "for a long time¹," and the great numbers of copper coins of little value found there point in the same direction. Roman soldiers, like the Vikings and the Swiss in later days, enlisted in the service of foreign kings, and "dumb Mlecchas," or "powerful Yavanas" in complete armour attending native princes are often mentioned in Tamil literature². Further than Nelkynda, our traveller evidently did not go. Like the great majority of Indian merchants of his time, he made the coasting voyage up the Arabian shores, to the head of the Persian Gulf, along the Mekrān to the mouth of the Indus, and then down the Indian coast to Cochin. His account is a reminiscence of personal experiences on this run. At Nelkynda, no doubt, he discharged his cargoes, loaded his holds with pepper, cinnamon, silks, muslins, and perhaps with a box or two of pearls, sapphires, and tortoise-shell, and waiting for the north-east winds of December, spread his sails for the long voyage back to the mouth of the Red Sea. But before he left Nelkynda, he gathered, no doubt from other sea-captains at anchor within the backwaters, many valuable facts about the east coast of India as far as the mouth of the Ganges, and these he has briefly recorded. Proceeding on his voyage, the traveller comes to cape Kumārī, where dwells a goddess (Kumārī or Devī), and where, we are told, is a shrine and monastery, where men and women dedicate themselves to a life of chastity in her honour, and perform ablutions. This is still true of the pilgrims who visit this holy spot. After this comes the Coast Land, the Chola Maṇḍalam or Chola-coast, the modern Coromandel. Its ports were Kamara, the Khaberis emporium of Ptolemy, at the mouth of the Kaveri; Poduca, i.e. Pudu-cheri or Pondicherry; and Soptama—Su-paṭana, the "fair city" of Madras. Here there was a flourishing trade in pearls and muslins, and ships from Bengal frequently put in. Travellers, were struck by the sangāra¹, or catamarans, large vessels made of logs, and the sea-going kolandia. To the Coromandel coast, says our author, went a very large proportion of the exports from Rome.