Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c6.40

c6.40

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.