Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c12.17

c12.17

Proceeding up the coast of India from Palura, Ptolemy arrives at the mouth of the Ganges. He is the first Western writer to mention the great Ganges delta. Even the writer of the Periplus says nothing of this, and Strabo and all earlier writers are silent upon the point, if we except Vergil's doubtful reference to the "seven calm streams" of that river¹. Ptolemy assigns to the Ganges five mouths². From the Ganges he goes on to Trans-Gangetic India³. First we arrive at the land of the Airrhadii, *i.e.* Further India from the Ganges to the Tokosanna or Arakan river; then we come to the Silver Country, Arakan and Pegu; then to Besynga or Bassein; and finally to the Golden Chersonese, the Malay Peninsula. The name is a translation of the Sanskrit *Suvarṇabhūmi*, applied to the Irrawady delta, the Burmese documents similarly styling their frontier as the Sonaparānta (Aurea Regio)⁴. After this, we arrive at the Great Cape (Cape Camboja) and the Great Gulf or Gulf of Siam. At the western end of this gulf lay Zabæ or Zaba, the port already mentioned for travellers sailing for Kattigara⁵.