Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c6: Chapter I. From the Earliest Times to the Fall of Babylon

Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c6

Language: English

Chapter I. From the Earliest Times to the Fall of Babylon

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‘Quinquiremes of Nineveh from distant Ophir
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine:
With cargoes of ivory, and apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet, white wine.’
J. MASEFIELD.

FROM prehistoric times, three great trade-routes have connected India with the West. The easiest, and probably the oldest of these, was the Persian Gulf route, running from the mouth of the Indus to the Euphrates, and up the Euphrates to where the road branches off to Antioch and the Levantine ports. Then there was the overland route, from the Indian passes to Balkh, and from Balkh either by river, down the Oxus to the Caspian, and from the Caspian to the Euxine, or entirely by land, by the caravan road which skirts the Karmanian Desert to the north, passes through the Caspian Gates, and reaches Antioch by way of Ktesiphon and Hekatompylus. Lastly, there is the circuitous sea route, down the Persian and Arabian coasts to Aden, up the Red Sea to Suez, and from Suez to Egypt on the one hand and Tyre and Sidon on the other. It must not be supposed, of course, that merchandise travelled from India to Europe direct. It changed hands at great emporia like Balkh, Aden or Palmyra, and was often, no doubt, bartered many times on the way. This accounts for the vagueness and inaccuracy of the accounts of India which filtered through to the West in early times. A story is always vastly changed in passing through many hands.

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Trade between the Indus valley and the Euphrates is, no doubt, very ancient. The earliest trace of this intercourse is probably to be found in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Hittite kings of Mitanni in Cappadocia, belonging to the fourteenth or fifteenth century B.C. These kings bore Aryan names, and worshipped the Vedic gods, Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, and the Aśvins, whom they call by their Vedic title Nāsatyā. They were evidently closely connected, though we cannot yet precisely determine how, with the Aryans of the Vedic Age, who were at that time dwelling in the Panjāb¹. It has been claimed that the word Sindhu, found in the library of Assurbanipal (668–626 B.C.), is used in the sense of “Indian cotton,” and the word is said to be much older, belonging in reality to the Akkadian tongue, where it is expressed by ideographs meaning “vegetable cloth¹.” Assurbanipal is known to have been a great cultivator, and to have sent for Indian plants, including the “wool-bearing trees” of India. At any rate, we know that the cotton trade of western India is of great antiquity. The Indians, when the Greeks first came into contact with them, were dressed in “wool grown on trees².” In the *Rig Veda*, Night and Dawn are compared to “two female weavers³.” We may perhaps trace to this source the Greek σινδών, the Arabic *satīn* (a covering), and the Hebrew *sadīn*⁴. Similarly the Hebrew *karpas* and the Greek *κάρπασος* come from the Sanskrit *karpāsa*. Logs of Indian teak have been found in the temple of the Moon at Mugheir (the “Ur of the Chaldees”) and in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar, both belonging to the sixth century B.C., and we know that the trade in teak, ebony, sandalwood and blackwood, between Barygaza and the Euphrates, was still flourishing in the second century A.D.⁵ In the swampy country at the mouth of the Euphrates, nothing but the cypress grows well.

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¹ These names were discovered by Prof. Hugo Winckler on a cuneiform tablet at the Hittite capital of Boghazköi, in 1907. See Ed. Meyer in vol. 42 of Kuhn's Zeitschrift, and the discussions by Oldenburg, Keith, Sayce, and Kennedy in J.R.A.S. 1909, pp. 1094–1119.

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¹ Sayce, *Hibbert Lectures*, 1887, p. 138. Max Müller, *Physical Religion* (1891), p. 25. This has been since doubted, however.

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² Herod. III. 106.

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³ *Rig-Veda*, II. 3. 6.

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⁴ Mentioned in Isaiah III. 23, among the foreign luxuries imported into Judaea. The A.V. translates it “fine linen.” Linen and cotton are often confused in ancient literature. Flax, of course, came from Egypt.

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⁵ *Periplus Maris Erythraei*, § 36.

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On the obelisk of Shalmaneser III, 860 B.C., are apes, Indian elephants, and Baktrian camels; and in one of the *Jātaka* stories, called the *Bāberu Jātaka*¹, we hear of Indian merchants who took periodical voyages to the land of *Bāberu* (Babylon). There were very few birds in that country, and on their first visit the merchants brought with them an Indian crow, which excited great admiration. But on a subsequent voyage they took a wonderful performing peacock, and the poor crow found himself quite eclipsed!

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¹ Trans. Cowell and Rouse (Cambridge, 1907), III. p. 83. This tale probably dates from the fifth century B.C. Professor Minayef first drew attention to this point.

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Indians appear in those days to have been experienced sailors. Early Indian literature contains abundant references to ships and sea-faring, and bears testimony to the skill and daring of Hindu mariners in remote times. There are many allusions in the *Ṛig Veda* to voyages by sea². In the longest of these passages, we hear of voyages to distant islands, and galleys with a hundred oars³. Evidently from early days the Indian seamen built ships larger than those usually employed even at a much later date in the Mediterranean. In the story of the invasion of Ceylon, probably in the sixth century B.C., by the Bengal prince Vijaya and his followers, we hear of a ship large enough to hold over seven hundred people⁴. This may be an exaggeration, but references to ships holding three¹, five², and even seven³ hundred people are to be found in the *Jātaka* stories. Indeed, Buddhist literature in particular abounds in allusions to sea-voyages, and we gather that traders visited Babylon, Ceylon, and the Golden Chersonese (*Suvarṇabhūmi*⁴). The chief ports were Champa and Tamralipti on the east coast, and Bharukaccha and Suppāra on the west⁵. The exports in which they dealt were various kinds of birds and beasts, including, curiously enough, the valuable Sind horses⁶, ivory, cotton goods, jewels, gold, and silver. Emigration was not uncommon. One of the most interesting of these early references to sea-borne traffic is to be found in the *Kevaddhu Sutta*⁷, where we read how long ago merchants sailed far out of sight of the coast, taking “shore-sighting” birds, which were released from time to time, in order that they might guide the mariners to land. This custom, which reminds us of the familiar episode of the story of Noah, is mentioned by Pliny⁸ and Kosmas Indikopleustes as existing among the Sinhalese.

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² e.g. *Ṛig Veda*, I. 25. 7, 56. 2, 97. 7, 116. 3; II. 48. 3; VII. 88. 3, etc. Bühler, *Origin of the Brāhma Alphabet*, p. 84.

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³ *Ṛig Veda*, I. 116. 3.

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⁴ *Mahāvaṃsa*. Tr. Turnour, Ch. VI *fin*.

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¹ Cambridge ed. II. 128 (*Vālahassa Jātaka*).

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² *Ibid.*

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³ *Ibid.* IV. 138 (*Suppāraka Jātaka*). For the whole subject, see Mukerji, *Indian Shipping*, Ch. III (Longmans, 1912).

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⁴ *Mahājanaka Jātaka*, Cambridge ed. VI. 32; *Saṅkha Jātaka*, *ibid.* VI. 15.

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⁵ See e.g. the *Suppāraka Jātaka*, Cambridge ed. IV. 138.

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⁶ *Kuṇḍaka-Kucchi-Sindava-Jātaka*, Cambridge ed. II. 287 et passim.

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⁷ Rhys Davids, *J.R.A.S.* 1899, p. 432. Probably fifth century B.C.

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⁸ *N.H.* VI. 22.

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The Persian Gulf trade was at first principally in the hands of the Chaldaeans, a troublesome nation, given to piracy, but they were exterminated in 694 B.C. by Sennacherib with the aid of a great fleet which he built upon the Tigris. Sennacherib, after breaking up this nest of pirates, sent them to dwell in Gerrha, where the heat was so fierce that they were forced to use blocks of salt to build their houses¹. The trade of the Persian Gulf then fell into the hands of the ubiquitous Phoenicians, a colony of whom, according to Justin², had settled in the Babylonian marshes, having been driven out of their own land by earthquakes. Abundant evidence of the presence of these merchants was visible in the days of Strabo on the Bahrein Islands, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf³. These remains have lately been excavated and many interesting relics were recovered⁴.

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¹ Strabo, Geog. XVI. 53.

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² Justin, XVIII. 3. 2.

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³ Geog. XVI. 3. 3-5. He says the shores were dotted with Phoenician temples.

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⁴ They are in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay. See the Report, Archaeological Survey, 1912-13.

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The Bahrein Islands were the port of call where ships took in water before setting sail for India, as the inhospitable Mekrān coast had nothing to offer them. The immense trade with all nations carried on by the Phoenicians may be estimated by studying the remarkable passage in which the prophet Ezekiel⁵ prophesies the overthrow of the great city of Tyre in 573 B.C., by Nebuchadnezzar II. “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of thy riches : with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded for thy wares. . . . Dan also, and Javan, going to and fro, occupied in thy fairs : bright iron, cassia and calamus were in thy market. . . . And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, ‘Who is there like Tyre, like her that is brought to silence in the midst of the sea? When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many peoples; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and thy merchandise.’” Herodotus refers to the Phoenician ships as “taking to long voyages, loading their ships with Assyrian and Egyptian wares¹.”

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⁵ Ch. XXVII et seq.

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¹ Herod. I. 50.

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In 606 B.C. came the overthrow of the Assyrian empire, and Babylon took the place of Nineveh as queen of western Asia. In the crowded marketplaces of that great city met the races of the world, —Ionian traders, Jewish captives, Phoenician merchants from distant Tarshish, and Indians from the Panjāb, who came to sell their wares. “At Babylon,” says Berosus, “there was a great resort of people of various races (πολὺ πλῆθος ἀνδρῶν ἀλλοεθνῶν), who inhabited Chaldaea and lived in a lawless fashion.” We have already referred to the Jātaka story of the Indian merchants who went to Babylon. A Babylonian colony may have sprung up on the borders of India, for Strabo tells us that the followers of Alexander found at Taxila a marriage-market conducted on the well-known Babylonian principle¹. The intercourse between India and the Semitic nations was, however, mostly carried on by sea. The journey from the defiles of the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean ports was long and dangerous: the mountains, the deserts, and the many wild tribes which lay in the path, presented an almost insurmountable barrier. The old story of the invasion of India by Semiramis is, of course, a fable, and emanates from the notorious Ktesias². There is, however, abundant evidence that such a route existed from very early times. An axe-head of white jade, which could only have come from China, has been found in the second city of Troy³. "The most ancient part of Indian art," says a recent critic, "belongs to the common endowment of early Asiatic culture which once extended from the Mediterranean to China and as far south as Ceylon, where some of the most archaic motifs survive in the decoration of pottery. To this Mykenaean facies belong all the simpler arts of woodwork, weaving, metalwork, pottery, etc., together with a group of designs including many of a remarkably Mediterranean aspect, others more likely originating in western Asia. The wide extension and consistency of this culture throughout Asia in the second millennium B.C., throws important light on ancient trade intercourse at the time when the eastern Mediterranean formed the western boundary of the civilized world¹.” No doubt the caravans travelled from immemorial times to the great emporium of Baktra, where the roads from India, China, and the West converged: there the cargoes were shipped on to rafts and floated down the Oxus to the Caspian, and thence, partly by land and partly by river, to the Euxine. Or else, travelling entirely by land, the merchants followed the great road which still skirts the Karmanian Desert to the north, passes through the Caspian Gates, and crossing the Euphrates at Thapsacus, ends at Antioch and the Levantine ports².

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¹ Strabo, Geog. xv. I. 61.

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² McCrindle, Ancient India, p. 10, note. The story is told at length in Diodorus Siculus, II. 16-20. Semiramis is probably Sammurammat, wife of Adad-Nirari IV, 810-782 B.C. She never went near India, or, indeed, east of the Tigris valley.

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³ Schliemann, Ilios, p. 240.

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¹ Coomaraswamy, *Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon* (Foulis, 1913), p. 40. See also the *Ostasiatische Zeitschrift*, 1914, p. 385 ff. The most remarkable example is that of the deer with four bodies and a single head. This design, found all over India, from the Ajaṇṭā Caves to Tanjore, is figured on a Chalcidian vase of the sixth cent. B.C. (*Morin Jean, Dessin des Animaux en Grèce*, fig. 156).

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² Strabo, II. I. 15.

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The third, and perhaps the most important of the trade-routes between India and the West, was that which ran from the mouth of the Red Sea to India up the Arabian coast. Its importance lies in the fact that it linked India not only to the gold-fields and the fabulously wealthy incense country of southern Arabia and Somaliland, but to Egypt and Judaea. Through Judaea, Indian goods found another outlet, by way of the adjacent ports of their allies of Tyre and Sidon, to the Mediterranean.

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For unknown years the Egyptians had traded in the Red Sea, fetching spices from the " land of Punt," and from Arabia Felix. No doubt from time to time Indian goods were brought in Arabian vessels to the ancient emporium of Aden. But the Egyptians were poor sailors. About the thirteenth century before Christ, however, a great impetus to the Red Sea trade was given, if we may trust the Jewish chroniclers, by the Phoenicians. David, king of Judah, had conquered Edom, and had thrown open to the Jews the valuable ports of Elath and Ezion Geber¹. He had also formed an alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre. Solomon, on his accession, suggested to Hiram's son the propriety of establishing a Phoenician trading station in the Red Sea, and the Tyrian monarch, nothing loth, equipped a fleet of " ships of Tarshish²," at Ezion Geber. The " navy of Tarshish " made a triennial voyage to the East, bringing back with them a vast quantity of gold and silver, ivory, apes, peacocks, and " great plenty of almug trees and precious stones³." The port at which they shipped these goods was Ophir, a place famous for its gold, so much so indeed that the expression “ gold of Ophir ” became proverbial in Hebrew¹. At first sight it appears as if the port of Ophir must have been somewhere on the Indian coast. India was famous for its gold. Ophir appears as Σωφάρα in the Septuagint, and Sophir is a term applied in Coptic to southern India. Abhīra² and Suppāra³ have also been proposed. Josephus even locates it in the Golden Chersonese⁴! Then again, most of the articles of commerce mentioned in the Jewish annals have names which may be traced to Indian originals. Thus “ ivory ” is in the Hebrew text *shen habbin*⁵, “ elephant’s teeth,” a literal translation of the Sanskrit *ibha-danta*. The “ almug ” is in Sanskrit and Tamil *valgu*. The word used for “ ape ” is not the ordinary Hebrew one, but *koph*, obviously the Sanskrit *kapi*. “ Peacocks ” are *thuki-im*, the Tamil *tokei*. Again, there is the curious resemblance between the *Mahoshadha Jātaka* and the story of the Judgement of Solomon. In the former story, the Buddha, incarnate in a former birth as vazir of the Raja of Benares, has to adjudicate between two women, each of whom claims a certain infant. Now one of the women was a yakshiṇī, or ghoul, who had stolen the child to devour it. The Buddha ordered one woman to seize the child’s head and the other his legs and to pull, and each should keep what they got. The ghoul, of course, assents, but the rightful mother consents to give up her share of the infant, rather than hurt him. To her the Buddha gives the child¹. This story, however, may have reached India from Babylon at the time of the Captivity (595–538 B.C.). Again, it is unlikely that the Phoenicians, bold sailors as they were, ever accomplished the lengthy voyage from Suez to an Indian port, particularly a South Indian port, in the primitive vessels then in use. It must be remembered that early mariners could not go very far from the coast², and the voyager would have to go right up the Arabian and Persian coasts, an enormously long way. It is much more probable that Ophir was an *entrepôt* on the shores of Arabia, where Indian and Phoenician alike brought their wares and bartered them. “Primitive trade,” it has been said, “ passes from tribe to tribe and port to port.” Ophir was probably at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, on the coast of Oman. Hither came for export the gold from the rich fields of southern Arabia which has made Ophir famous. After the death of Solomon, the trade of Ezion Geber gradually declined with the chequered fortunes of the Jewish nation. Jehoshaphat tried to revive it, but his fleet met with disaster¹ outside the port. The Edomites revolted and were repressed with difficulty, though the neighbouring port of Elath was in Jewish hands until its capture by Tiglath-pileser.

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¹ The modern Akaba, at the head of the eastern arm of the Red Sea. In Roman times the port was known as Aelana and the gulf as the Sinus Aelaniticus.

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² i.e. sea-going vessels, such as were used for long voyages.

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³ I Kings II. 26, x. 21; II Chronicles IX. 21, and XVII. 18.

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¹ e.g. Job XXII. 24, XXVIII. 16, Psalm XLV. 9, Isaiah XIII. 12, in addition to passages already cited.

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² Lassen, *Ind. Alt.* I. 538.

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³ Benfey, *Indien*, 30, in Ersch and Grüber’s *Encyclopaedia*.

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⁴ *Ant. Jud.* VIII. 2. For a summary and bibliography of the Ophir literature, see Hastings, *Dictionary of the Bible*, s.v. The best authority is Glaser, *Skizze der Geog. Arab.* (1890), II. 353. Ophir is between Sheba and Havilah, Gen. x. 29.

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⁵ Habbin is no doubt a corruption of *ibha*.

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¹ Cambridge ed. VI. 163. The story is part of the *Ummaga Jātaka*. See also Rhys Davids, *Buddhist Birth stories*, Introd. XIV.

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² Even the Indian mariner with his “ shore-sighting ” birds, was probably never more than fifty miles from land. The voyages to Babylon, Ceylon, Burma, etc. were all coasting voyages.

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¹ I Kings xxii. 48; II Chron. xx. 36.

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The general effect of this intercourse upon any of the countries concerned was not very great. Articles of commerce, bearing their Indian names, reached, as we have already seen, the western world from time to time. Indian ivory became widely known in the Mediterranean at an early date. The Egyptian word *ebu*, like the Italian *ebur*, is clearly the Sanskrit *ibha*. The Greek root *ἐλεφαντ-*, like the Hebrew word, appears to represent *ibha-danta*, perhaps with the Arabic prefix *el*². If this is so, the word is an interesting hybrid, betraying an Indian origin and Arabian conveyance to Europe. The word is found in Homer, as is also *κασσίτερος*, the Sanskrit *kastīra*. Tin and ivory reached Greece at an early period from India. The “ape,” like the ivory of Solomon, also found its way to Egypt, if the Egyptian *kafu*, like the Hebrew *koph*, comes from *kapi*. Among substances which originally came from Dravidian ports, we may mention rice, which, like ivory, was originally brought to Europe by Arab traders. The Tamil *arisi* become *aruz* in Arabian and *ὄρυζα* in Greek¹. Other articles of trade which reached Europe at various dates from Dravidian ports are aloes (Tamil *aghil*, Hebrew *ahal*); cinnamon (Tamil *karppu*, Greek *κάρπιον*, first mentioned by Ktesias); ginger (Tamil *inchiver*, Greek *ζιγγίβερις*); pepper (Tamil *pippali*, Greek *πέπερι*); and the beryl-stone (Tamil and Sanskrit *vaidūrya*, Greek *βήρυλλος*). The presence of the African Baobab (*Adansonia digitata*) in the Tinavelly district has been traced to early traders from Africa².

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² There is, however, a good deal of doubt about this prefix. Another possible derivation is the Hebrew *eleph*, ox, like the *bos Lucas* of Lucretius.

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¹ See, for the history of Rice, Hewitt, *R.S.A. Journal*, 1890, p. 730.

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² Caldwell, *Dravidian Grammar*, vol. I. Introduction. Ginger, pepper and the beryl do not occur before Pliny. The word "crimson" (Skt. *krimi*, a worm, cf. *vermeil*) is another example. Practically all these articles are *Dravidian*, it should be noted, either because in early days Dravidians still held the west coast of India as far as Broach, or because many articles of commerce from South India were sent north for export. The Baobab may have come much later, with the African Mohammedans, or with the Portuguese. The latter, both in India and Africa, make a kind of sherbert from the fruit.

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Whether India was affected in the prehistoric period by her contact with her nearer and more powerful neighbours, the Assyrians and Babylonians, is an interesting question. The *Brāhmī*-script, the parent script of India, was borrowed from Semitic sources, probably about the seventh century B.C.¹ The influence of Babylonian mythology may perhaps be detected in Hindu literature. The myth of the Fish Incarnation of Vishnu in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa is reminiscent of the Babylonian stories of the Flood². Chaldaean astronomy may be responsible for the division of the sky into twenty-four nakshatras, and perhaps we may trace to this ultimate source the division of the week into seven days, named after the sun, moon, and five planets. This, however, was apparently borrowed directly from Alexandria by the Indians, as it is only mentioned in the later astronomical works³. The relation between the earliest Indian and Babylonian weights and measures is obscure⁴. In architecture, India owed very little to Babylon, though she borrowed certain details of ornamentation, such as the bell-capital and the lion-pillar, indirectly from Assyria through Persia. Babylonian architecture, owing to the lack of good building stone, was never remarkable. "Babylonian temples are massive but shapeless structures of crude brick supported by buttresses⁵.'

Linked texts (14)

Jātaka — Pāli
Ṛgvedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים ב — Hebrew
בְּרֵאשִׁית — Hebrew
אִיּוֹב — Hebrew
תְּהִלִּים — Hebrew
יְשַׁעְיָהוּ — Hebrew
Naturalis historia — C. Plinius Secundus, Latin
מְלָכִים א — Hebrew
יְחֶזְקֵאל — Hebrew
Dīghanikāya — Pāli
Mahāvaṃsa — Pāli
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
Śatapathabrāhmaṇa — Yājñavalkya & Śāṇḍilya (Vedic teacher), Sanskrit