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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s3: Trade

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s3

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Trade

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By the time of the early Buddhist literature the Indians had developed an extensive system of inland trade which was borne along well-known trade-routes. These routes were marked by convenient stages and served to link up the most distant parts of the country with one another. Among them we may mention specifically the following :—

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1. East to west. This most important route ran principally along the great rivers. From Champā boats plied up to Benares, the great industrial and trading centre of those times. From Benares they led up the Ganges as far as Sahajāti and up the Jumna as far as Kauśāmbi. Further west the route led by land-tracts to Sindhu, famous for its breed of horses and Sauvīra (‘Sophir’ or ‘Ophir’ of the Old Testament ?).

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2. North to south-west. This route extended from Śrāvastī, the famous capital of Kosala, to Pratiṣṭhāna on the Godāvarī and the stations lying on it in the reverse direction included Ujjayinī, Vidiśā and Kauśāmbi.

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3. North to south-east. Along this route which ran from Śrāvastī to Rājagṛiha lay a number of stations including Kapilavastu, Vaiśālī, Pāṭaliputra and Nālandā.

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4. North-west route, also referred to by Pāṇini¹. It stretched along the land of the Five Rivers to the great highways of Central and Western Asia.

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¹ V. 1.17 :—*Uttarapathenāhṛtam ca*.

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We also hear of merchants travelling from Kashmir and Gandhāra to Videha, from Benares to Ujjayinī, from Magadha to Sauvīra and so forth². What vast wealth accrued from this system of inland trade is illustrated by references to merchant princes like Anāthapiṇḍika of Śrāvastī whose trading connections extended to Rājagṛiha on the one side and Kāśī on the other. Nevertheless, the path of the trader was anything but easy. Not only were the roads (specially through the forests) infested by robbers against whom the merchants protected themselves by hiring the services of forest-guards, but the deserts had to be crossed at night with the help of land-pilots (*thala-niyāmaka*) guiding the caravan by the stars. Associated with the wilderness was a host of real and imaginary dangers viz., drought, famine, wild beasts, robbers and demons. Some of the roads were already distinguished as 'royal' or 'great' roads (*rājapatha* or *mahāmagga*) unlike the ordinary bye-paths (*upapatha*). But the rivers were not bridged and had to be crossed by ferries. The overland as well as oversea trade likewise attracted the attention of Indian merchants. The Pāli canonical texts speak of voyages lasting six months in ships (*nāvā*) which could be drawn up on shore in the winter¹. The *Jātakas*, above all, have preserved memories of voyages of daring Indian merchants beyond the seas and lands to distant countries of the east and west. References are made in these works to merchants voyaging from Champā or even Benares to the mysterious land of Suvarṇabhūmi which has been proved to be a generic title in those days for Burma, the Malay Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago. We hear even of merchants voyaging from the great western seaport Bharukachchha to the same destination, obviously *via* a Ceylonese port. Indeed, Ceylon (Tambapaṇṇi) at that time was 'another bourne of oversea commerce'. We also learn how another body of merchants travelled from Benares to Bāveru (Babylon)². An interesting sidelight is thrown upon the methods of Indian navigation by the reference to the direction-giving crows (*disā-kāka*) showing the navigators as they flew towards the land, in what direction lay the coast³. This practice, as has been remarked⁴, was also known to the sea-faring Babylonians and Phoenicians of early times.

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² Cf. *Jāt.* ii. 248 : iii. 365 : *Vimānavatthu* commentary 370 etc.

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¹ Cf. *Saṃ. N.* III p. 155 : *Ibid.* v p. 51 : *Aṅg. N.* iv. p. 127.

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² Cf. *Jāt.* iv. 15-7 : vi. 34 : iii. 126 ff.

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³ Cf. *Jāt.* iii. 126-7, 267 etc.

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⁴ See Fick. *op. cit.*, Eng. tr. p. 269.

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The references in Kauṭilya's *Arthaśāstra*, scattered and incidental as they are, register some advance in the conditions of trade above described. Active encouragement of trade on the part of the State is proved by the care with which Kauṭilya provides for the construction and security of trade-routes and the foundations of market-towns in his scheme of State colonisation of the country-part. Elsewhere (ii. 4), the largest scale of width—eight *daṇḍas* as compared with the usual four *daṇḍas*—is prescribed for roads leading to the market-towns (*saṃyānīya patha*). Intelligent appreciation of the importance of trade-routes is shown by the discussion in *Arthaśāstra* circles (vii. 12) of the relative advantages of different types of trade-routes from the standpoint of their conduciveness to commerce. Such are the pairs: land and water-routes, water-routes along the coast and through mid-water, the Himalayan and the southern land-routes. In comparing the last pair, the *Arthaśāstra* authors give us a valuable, though far from exhaustive, list of the imports borne along both routes evidently to the Ganges valley. According to an un-named teacher quoted by Kauṭilya, the costlier merchandise consisting of elephants, horses, fragrant products, tusks, skins, gold and silver were more plentiful in the Himalayas. In Kauṭilya's opinion, on the other hand, the merchandise other than blankets, skins and horses, and consisting of conch-shells, diamonds, jewels, pearls and gold, was more plentiful in the South. For the rest, the remarkable lists of agricultural, manufacturing and other products of different lands which Kauṭilya mentions (ii. 11-12) testify to the extent as well as the objects of India's internal and foreign trade. Among these products are found textiles of Bengal, Assam, Benares, the Konkan and Pāṇḍya, the silks of China, the woollens of Nepal, the skins of the Himalayan regions, the fragrant wood of Assam, Ceylon (?) and the Himalayas, the gems of Ceylon (?), Alakanda and Vivarna (unidentified) and the like¹.

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¹ It is interesting to recall Pāṇini's *sūtra* vi. 2.13 referring to the practice of merchants being named from the countries which they visited. The late *Kāśikā* commentary gives the following illustrations of the above :— *Madra-vāṇija*, *Kaśmīra-vāṇija* and *Gandhāra-vāṇija*.

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All indications point to the fact that the rise of the Nandas and the Mauryas helped greatly to improve India's inland and foreign trade. The liberation of the Indus valley, and still more the repulse of Seleucus, gave Chandragupta Maurya complete control over the coveted north-western route to which we have referred above. With the conquest of the Deccan by Chandragupta Maurya or Bindusāra, the possession of the equally, or still more, valuable western and southern routes was ensured to the Mauryas. The conquest of Kaliṅga by Aśoka destroyed the only possible rival for the mastery of the eastern trade. While the Mauryas thus brought all the great inland trade-routes under the control of a highly centralised and efficient administration, their rule was helpful for the growth of trade in other ways. That the Mauryas had a special department for the construction of roads is proved by Megasthenes' reference (quoted, Strabo xv.1.50) to the duties of officers called Agoranomoi ('market commissioners'). They had, among other duties, to 'construct roads and at every ten stadia set up a pillar to show the bye-roads and distances.' The most renowned of the imperial roads of these times was 'the Royal Road' connecting the North-West Frontier with Pāṭaliputra and leading thence to the mouths of the Ganges. The stages of this first Indian Grand Trunk Road together with their distances have been recorded by the Roman writer Pliny in his encyclopaedic work called *Natural History* (vi. 21). His somewhat confused account may be summed up in the following table¹ :-

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¹ For a useful summary of the discussion relating to Pliny's account see McCrindle, *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian*, Calcutta ed., pp. 130-34. Arrian (*Indica*, ch. iii) quotes Eratosthenes to say that the Royal Road was measured by *schoeni*. According to Pliny, (Arrian's *Indica*, E. J. Chinnock's tr. p. 401n) the *schoenus* was reckoned by Eratosthenes at 40 stadia (about five miles). Strabo (*Geography* xv. 1.11) mentions measurement of the Royal Road 'with necessary lines', which by a slight emendation of the text may be taken to mean 'in terms of the *schoenus*' (Loeb's Classical Library ed., Vol. viii. p. 17n).

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| | Roman miles |
| From Peucelaotis (Pushkarāvati) to the Indus | 60 |
| Thence to the Hydaspes (Jhelum) .. | 60 |
| Thence to the Hyphasis (Beas) .. | 270 |
| From the Hyphasis to the Hesidrus (Sutlej) | 168 |
| From the Hesidrus to the Jomanes (Jumna) | 168 (*sic*) |
| From the Jomanes to the Ganges .. | 112 |
| From the Ganges to Rhodopha (unidentified) | 119 |
| From Rhodopha to Kalinipaxa (unidentified) | 167 (or 265) |
| From Kalinipaxa to the confluence of the | |
| Jomanes and the Ganges .. .. | 625 (*sic*) |

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From the confluence to Palibothra . . 425 (sic) From Palibothra to the mouths of the Ganges 638

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We have reasons to believe that the ancient foreign trade of India, like its inland trade, benefited by the strong and efficient administration of the Mauryas. The wise policy of friendship with the Hellenistic powers started by Chandragupta Maurya after the repulse of Seleucus and maintained by his son and grandson, must have favoured the expansion of the Indian trade with West Asia and Egypt. It is interesting to learn from Greek classical sources that the main commerce between the early Seleucid Empire and India was borne partly by the land-route (the northern one passing through Bactria and the southern through Gedrosia and Carmania, Persis and Susiana) and partly by the sea-route (through Gerrha on the west coast of the Persian Gulf). Like the Indian route to Egypt stretching along the east shore of the Red Sea, the route through the Persian Gulf was controlled by powerful Arab tribes engaged in a highly developed trade¹. How valuable was this western trade to India will appear from the list of her exports into Egypt, which, according to Greek classical sources, consisted of ivory, tortoise-shell, pearls, pigments and dyes (specially indigo), nard, costum, malabathron and rare woods². It is probably in the light of this extensive commerce with western lands that we have to understand Aśoka's ambitious attempt to extend the benefits of his religious and humanitarian propaganda to the Hellenistic kingdoms almost to their furthest limits. To the mutual knowledge and understanding derived from long-continued commercial intercourse, again, we may probably attribute the success which attended Aśoka's mission to Ceylon and, if this can be taken to be authentic, the mission of Soṇa and Uttara to Suvaṇṇabhūmi (Further India).

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¹ For references see Rostovtzeff, *The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World*, p. 457.

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² Rostovtzeff, *op. cit.*, pp. 386-7. We have an interesting reminiscence of Indians sharing in this western trade in a story narrated by Posidonius and quoted by Strabo in his *Geography* (ii. 3.4). According to this story while Euergetes II (145-116 B.C.) was reigning in Egypt, an Indian being stranded on the shore of the Arabian Sea was brought to Alexandria and having learnt Greek gave the Court information of the sea-route to India. Then the king sent out an expedition under Eudoxus of Cyzicus. The expedition set out probably in the last years of Euergetes II and returned heavily laden with goods. Equal success attended a second expedition sent out under the same captain in the following reign. It has been recently suggested on good grounds that the discovery of the monsoon attributed to Hippalus in the literary records was made by Eudoxus himself who probably derived his information from the stranded Indian merchant and undertook his first expedition with his help. On the whole subject, see Rostovtzeff, *op. cit.* pp. 926, 927, 929.

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