Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c12.34

c12.34

It should be remembered that from this time to the days of the great migration to Java, Indian shipping itself developed considerably. Mention has been already made of the ships, of considerable size, employed from the earliest times by Indian merchants. It was in the days of Eudoxus that the first Indian, a shipwrecked sailor, rescued by chance from a watery grave, reached Alexandria. The subsequent expansion in trade is marked by the rules for merchandise, shipping, and port-dues found in the Code of Manu². It was probably some time in the first century A.D. that the first or Eastern invasion of Java, by colonists from Kalinga, took place. Subsequent invasions by large bodies of adventurers from Gujarat and the Western ports, are probably some three or four centuries later¹. The interesting treatise on shipping, the *Yuktikalpataru* of Bhoja Narapati, may belong to this period. In this pamphlet, detailed directions for shipbuilding are given, and ships 176 cubits long, fitted with cabins, are referred to².