The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c16.7

c16.7

It should not, however, be said that we have here the first beginnings of commercial transactions; undoubtedly, the statements contained in the Jâtakas relate to oversea trade as well as to brisk inland trade. When in describing a caravan passing through sandy deserts, its march is compared with a journey through the sea (samuddagamanasadisam eva gamanam hoti. I. 107), when it is narrated that one entrusts the lead to a "land tax-collector" (thalaniyâmaka) who directs the caravan with the help of astronomy, we find clearly expressed here acquaintance with navigation and the knowledge of the starry heavens required for this. Also another thing which the Indians employed, like the seafaring Phœnicians and Babylonians of ancient times, for finding the direction during navigation, we find mentioned in the Jâtakas, namely, "direction-giving crows" (disâkâka); they showed the navigators, when they lost sight of the land, as they flew towards the land, in what direction the coast was to be found. On the high seas such a "compass" could not surely be of much use to the sailors—for this reason it is narrated of the merchants in the Kâsi kingdom who have a disâkâka on board their ship, that they suffer shipwreck in mid-ocean (III. 267)—but it is very useful for navigation along the coast. This, and not navigation in the open sea, is, I think, throughout meant when the Jâtakas speak of oversea trade. The disappearance of the coast after several days' navigation is especially brought into prominence and stated as a cause of shipwreck. "Five hundred tradesmen"—so it is said in the Paṇḍara Jâtaka (V. 75)—"went on a sea-voyage and suffered shipwreck on the ocean, as on the seventeenth day no land was to be seen; all on board, not one excepted, became the food of the fish." On the whole, we shall do well if we accept a bit cautiously this supposition of an extensive oversea trade. If there really was regular trade¹ between India and countries like the Babylonian kingdom—whose name exists in the form *Bāveruraṭṭha* (III. 126)²—we should certainly have heard occasionally from the Jātakas of the products of this land, of its inhabitants and their customs. The existence of the mere name shows that the city was known by name in the age to which our source relates; probably, Indian sailors went to Babylon and spread reports on their return home about the city and its wonders, so that from that time onward in every story in which the ship-wrecked played a part, the name of the city of *Bāveru* appeared, the mention of which served to make the listeners expect something wonderful. But oversea trade is not so frequently mentioned in the Jātakas that one can talk of a *Samuddavāṇija* as a typical figure.