The Colas c12.76

c12.76

Of the carrying trade of the Indian ocean and the Arabian sea, the Cōḷas had an important share and controlled ‘the largest and most extensive of the Coromandel coast.⁸⁷ In the harbours of the Cōḷa country, says the author of the *Periplus*, ‘are ships of the country coasting along the shore as far as Damirica;⁸⁸ and other very large vessels made of single logs bound together, called *sangara*; but those which make the voyage to Chryse and to the Ganges are called *colandia* and are very large.’⁸⁹ Here three kinds of craft are distinguished by the author of the *Periplus*—light coasting boats for local traffic, larger vessels of a more complicated structure and greater carrying capacity, and lastly the big ocean-going vessels that made the voyages to Malaya and Sumatra, and the Ganges. Quite obviously, the light coasting craft is what the poet Rudraṅgaṇṇanār had in mind when he described rows of roomy boats which had returned laden with grain secured in exchange for the white salt they had sold and which were seen in the back-waters of the port of Puhār tied to rows of pegs and looking like so many destriers.⁹⁰ The same writer mentions elsewhere larger ships which carried flags at their mastheads and which he compares to big elephants. Navigation in the high seas and the dangers attendant on it in foul weather are picturesquely described in the *Maṇimēkalai* in a forcible simile in which the mad progress of Udayakumara in search of Maṇimēkalai⁹¹ is compared to that of a ship caught in a storm on the high sea: