Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c6.13

c6.13

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.