Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t5: 5. The Deccan and the Punjab through Hellenistic and Roman Eyes

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c11.t5

Language
English

5. The Deccan and the Punjab through Hellenistic and Roman Eyes

c11.t5.1

Previous to the rise of the Châlukyas the dominions of the Deccan had for centuries been held by the Ândhras. Like the other nationalities of India south of the Vindhya Mountains the Ândhra monarchy was a naval power with base on the Madras Coast. A large two-masted ship¹ was the device of the coins that were struck by Yajna-śrî (*c* A. C. 173—202). It was intended evidently to be an emblem of the people's maritime importance. About five hundred years previous to this date the founders of the Ândhra Dynasty had measured their strength with the mighty Mauryas (*c* B. C. 300) only to submit to their superior numbers. The Deccan army was at this time made up of 100,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry, and 1,000 elephants, according to both Megasthenes and Pliny.²

c11.t5.2

¹ *Ind. Ship.*, 119; For the boundaries of the Ândhra Empire see D. R. Bhandarkar's “Dekkan of the Sâta-vahana Period” in the *Ind. Ant.* (1918), pp. 150, 151, 156; See also the studies of V. S. Sukthankar for an altogether new light on the expansion of the Ândhra dominions (*R. G. Bhandarkar Commemoration Volumes*, Poona, 1920).

c11.t5.3

² Meg. LVI; *Natural History*, Book VI, Ch. xxi—xxiii; *Ind. Ant.*, 1918, p. 70.

c11.t5.4

From the accounts of Greek and Roman writers it would appear that in ancient times the Punjab was, what Bengal has always been, a land of navigable rivers. Like the Easterners, therefore, the Northwestern Hindus were naturally skilled in riparian warfare. The Punjab fleets were strong elements in India's opposition to Alexander. The Xathroi or Kṣatriyas³ may be described as having been by far the most noted naval architects and shipping experts.

c11.t5.5

³ *Infra*, p. 144.

c11.t5.6

It was, again, the boats of the various Punjab republics that made up the fleet, 800 to 2,000 vessels strong, with which Nearchos was entrusted for the voyage down the Indus and up to the Persian Gulf.⁴ It is said that 4,000 Hindu boats had been assembled on the Indus to resist the earlier invasion of India by Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, and also that in much later times Mahmud the Moslem invader had to encounter the measures of national defense organized by a Punjab fleet of the same strength.¹

c11.t5.7

⁴ Vincent's *Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients*, Vol. I, p. 12.

c11.t5.8

¹ Robertson's *Disquisition*, pp. 296—297 (notes). See Bejoy Kumar Sarkar’s “Water Transport in Mediaeval India” in the *Journal of the Department of Letters*, Vol. IV (Calcutta 1921).

Linked texts (2)