Introduction

I.—ISOLATION AND INTERCOURSE.

EVEN a superficial view of the physical features of India cannot fail to show that there is hardly any part of the world better marked out by nature as a region by itself than India. It is a region, indeed, full of contrasts in physical features and climate, but the features that divide and isolate it as a whole from surrounding regions are too clear to be over- looked. In truth, the whole of India, in spite of assertions to the contrary made by some geographers, is easily perceived to be a single country endowed with a sharply defined individuality, and beneath her truly manifold and bewildering variety there is a fundamental geographical unity, a complete territorial synthesis.

Mountain-guarded and sea-girt as she is on the north and the south, India looks as if she had been meant by nature to remain aloof from the rest of the world and to develop her civilization in isolation, untouched by the currents that stir humanity abroad. And yet there is hardly any country in the world

that presents such an eventful record of intercourse with foreign countries. The geography of India points to her natural isolation ; but the history of India reveals other facts. And if we study that his- tory carefully from the earliest times we shall easily recognize that contact or intercourse with other countries has been a no less potent factor in its making than isolation. It has been well said that none of the greatest movements in the world which have influenced the history of mankind have failed to touch India and contribute to the development and richness of her extraordinarily varied culture and civilization. Above all comprehension and beyond all human insight is that mysterious impulse which gave birth to the momentous movement of Aryan migration and expansion, so big with consequences, and by far the most important event in the world’s history. And it is a commonplace of history that one of the main streams of this great migration of the pioneers of the world’s civilization entered India through her north-western mountain passes to build up her spiritual character, even as the Indus and the Ganges have broken through the Himalayas to create her physical character. For centuries these Indo-Aryans pushed on their work of colonizing India amid struggles and conflicts with the original inhabitants of the country, and developed a civiliza- tion that is reflected in the literature they have created. Then rose Buddhism, the first of worldreligions, a product of the Indian soil which extended its influence beyond its limits over all countries lying east and north of India—from the steppes of the Mongols and the mountainous wildernesses of Tibet, through Japan, and on the south and east far into the Indian Archipelago. For centuries India stood out as the heart of the Old World, moulding and dominating its thought and life. Meanwhile there continued to beat upon Indian shores successive waves of foreign influence, such as the Iranian influence flowing from the first veritable empire of the ancient Orient, the empire of the Achaemenides, which under Darius included within itself the whole of Sindh and a considerable portion of the Punjab east of the Indus, forming his twentieth satrapy and yielding the enormous tribute of fully a million sterling, an influence that left some marks upon Indian art and architecture and methods of govern- ment and administration ; the Hellenic influence beginning from Alexander’s invasion and exercised by a succession of Greek rulers of the Punjab and neighbouring regions, but " which touched only the fringe of Indian civilization “; and the Graeco- Roman influence during the time of the Kushan or Indo-Scythian kings. Then, also, the two great civi- lizing forces of the world that next arose did not fail to touch India and contribute to her making, viz. the Islamic culture and civilization, and the European, which, following in the wake of foreign invasions and commerce, has continued to influence Indian thought and life to this day. India, therefore, is a favoured country where all the diversities of human culture have met to build up an extraordinarily rich and synthetic culture. Thus intercourse is as much a characteristic of the history of India as isolation.

Hardly less convincing than these facts of the political intercourse of India are the facts of her commercial intercourse with foreign countries with which we are more directly concerned. We shall have ample evidence to show that for full thirty centuries India stood out as the very heart of the Old World, and maintained her position as one of the foremost maritime countries. She had colonies in Pegu, in Cambodia, in Java, in Sumatra, in Borneo, and even in the countries of the Farther East as far as Japan. She had trading settlements in Southern China, in the Malayan peninsula, in Arabia, and in all the chief cities of Persia and all over the east coast of Africa. She cultivated trade relations not only with the countries of Asia, but also with the whole of the then known world, including the countries under the dominion of the Roman Empire, and both the East and the West became the theatre of Indian commercial activity and gave scope to her naval energy and throbbing international life.

It will thus be seen that instead of the rigid isolation apparently decreed to her by nature, we find a remarkably active intercourse with foreign countries established by the efforts of man, and a conquest achieved over the natural environment. The great and almost impregnable barriers on the north are pierced by mountain-passes which have been throughout used as the pathways of commerce and communication with the external world. To- wards the south the ocean from its very nature proved a far more effective and fatal barrier to the cultivation of foreign relations, till the rapid develop- ment of national shipping triumphed over that obstacle and converted the ocean itself into a great highway of international intercourse and commerce. The early growth of her shipping and ship- building, coupled with the genius and energy of her merchants, the skill and daring of her seamen, the enterprise of her colonists, and the zeal of her mis- sionaries, secured to India the command of the sea for ages, and helped her to attain and long maintain her proud position as the mistress of the Eastern seas. There was no lack of energy on the part of Indians of old in utilizing to the full the opportunities presented by nature for the development of Indian maritime activity—the fine geographical position of India in the heart of the Orient, with Africa on the west and the Eastern Archipelago and Australia on the east, her connection with the vast mainland of Asia on the north, her possession of a sea-board that extends over more than four thousand miles, and finally the network of rivers which opens up the interior. In fact, in India there is to be found the conjunction or assemblage of most of those specific geographical conditions on which depends the com-mercial development of a country.

II.—EVIDENCES.

The sources and materials available for the con- struction of a history of Indian shipping and maritime activity naturally divide themselves into two classes, Indian and foreign. The Indian evidences are those derived from Indian literature and art, including sculpture and painting, besides the evidence of archaeology in its threefold branches, epigraphic, monumental, and numismatic. The evidences of Indian literature are based chiefly on Sanskrit, Pali, and Persian works, and in some cases on works in the Indian vernaculars, Tamil, Marathi, and Bengali. The foreign evidences consist of those writings of foreign travellers and historians which contain observations on Indian subjects, and also of archaeological remains such as those in Java. The former are embedded mostly in classical litera- ture, in Chinese, Arabic, and Persian, to which we have access only through translations.

The way these various evidences, literary and monumental, Indian and foreign, will be arranged, and the order in which they will be presented, require to be explained at the outset. Bearing in mind the well-known dictum that “the literature as well as the art of a people tells its life,” I have thought that the case for India’s maritime activity cannot be held to be sufficiently made out until in the first instance it is supported by the evidence supplied by her own native literature and art, great as they are. The first proofs of Indian maritime activity, and of the existence and growth of an Indian shipping by which that activity realized itself, must accordingly be sought in the domain of Indian literature and art, and the want or paucity of these can hardly be compensated for by the abund- ance of evidences culled from foreign works. The evidences that will therefore be first presented will be all Indian, being those supplied by Indian litera- ture and art, and after them will follow the evidences derived from foreign sources. Again, as the dates of most of the Indian literary works to which reference will be made are unhappily not yet a matter of certainty, I could not make the evidences drawn from them the basis of any historical treat- ment of the subject or regard them as any help to a chronological arrangement of the facts regarding the shipping, sea-borne trade, and maritime activity of India. Accordingly, the evidence from Indian literature that will be first adduced will serve only as an introduction to the whole subject, preparing the ground and making out the case for it, so to speak. The real historical narrative of the naval activity of India will be built up of materials supplied by such foreign and also Indian works as labour under no chronological difficulties.

The passages from ancient Indian works will be presented, as far as possible, in the order determined by tradition. In the opinion of the late Professor Bühler, the far-famed German orientalist, " there are passages in ancient Indian works which prove the early existence of a navigation of the Indian Ocean and the somewhat later occurrence of trading voyages undertaken by Hindu merchants to the shores of the Persian Gulf and its rivers.” These proofs, however, will be found mostly to supply an indirect kind of evidence; they contain no direct information regarding the existence and develop- ment of a national shipping which is certainly implied in the existence, development, and con- tinuance of that maritime trade to which they so conclusively refer. For it is a commonplace of history, and quite stands to reason, that no com- merce can spring up, and much less thrive, especially in early times, unless it is fostered by a national shipping. Accordingly, the direct proofs that are available regarding Indian shipping and naval activity will have precedence over the indirect ones, and they will include illustrations of the typical ships and boats that are represented in old Indian art, in sculpture and painting, and on coins.

III.—EVIDENCES.

The epochs of Indian history round which these various evidences regarding the shipping and maritime activity of India will be grouped, may be roughly indicated as follows:—

1. The Pre-Mauryan Epoch, extending from the earliest times to about the year B.C. 321.—For this period we shall discuss the evidences that can be gleaned from some of the oldest literary records of humanity like the Rig-Veda, the Bible, and some of the old Pali and Tamil works, as also from the finds of Egyptian and Assyrian archaeologists, regarding the early maritime intercourse of India with the West. Evidences for this period are also to be derived from the writings of the Greek authors Herodotus and Ctesias, in the 5th century B.C., containing references to India.

2. The Mauryan Epoch (B.C. 321—184).—For this period the available evidences are those preserved in the works of many Greek and Roman authors who essayed to tell the story of Alexander’s Indian campaign and recorded the observations made on India by the Greek ambassadors to the courts of the Maurya emperors. These Greek and Roman notices of India have been mostly made accessible to Indian students by the translations of Mr. McCrindle. More important and interesting than these foreign evidences is the evidence furnished by a recently published Sanskrit work, the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya, which is a mine of in- formation regarding the manifold aspects of a highly developed material civilization witnessed by Maurya India. Bearing on this period also is the evidence of tradition preserved in that monumental work of the Kashmirian poet Kshemendra called Bodhisattvā- vadāna Kalpalatā, which is now being published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the Bibliotheca Indica series. The seventy-third pallava or chapter of this work relates a story which throws some light on the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of India during the days of the Emperor Asoka.

3. The Kushan Period in the north and the Andhra Period in the south, extending roughly from the 2nd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.— This was the period when Roman influence on India was at its height; in fact, the whole of the southern peninsula under the Andhra dynasty was in direct communication with Rome, while the conquests in Northern India tended still further to open up trade with the Roman Empire, so that Roman gold poured into all parts of India in pay- ment for her silks, spices, gems, and dye-stuffs. The evidences proving this are the remarkable finds of Roman coins, more numerous in the south than in the north, together with the references in the ancient Sanskrit and Pali works to “Romaka,” or the city of Rome, and in ancient Tamil works to the" Yavanas " or Greeks and Romans, and to the important South Indian ports like Muchiris and Pukar, of which full descriptions are given in old Tamil poems. Besides evidences from ancient Indian literature bearing on Indian commerce with Rome, there are also definite evidences from important foreign works. The chief of these are Pliny’s Natural History, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, and Ptolemy’s Geography, besides the incidental allusions to Indian commerce and shipping thrown out by writers like Agatharcides and Strabo.

4. The Period of Hindu Imperialism in Northern India under the Guptas and Harshavardhana, extending from the 4th century to the 7th century A.D.—This was the period of the expansion of India and of much colonizing activity towards the farther East from Bengal, the Kalinga coast, and Coromandel. Parts of Burma and Malacca were colonized, chiefly from Kalinga and Bengal, as shown in Sir A. P. Phayre’s History of Burma, and testified to by Burmese sacred scriptures and coins. The main evidences for the remarkable maritime activity of this period are supplied by the accounts of the numerous Chinese pilgrims to India, of whom Fa-Hien was the first and Hiuen Tsang the most famous. These accounts are now all accessible through translations. Among foreign works supplying valuable materials for the history of the period may be mentioned the Christian Topography of Cosmas. Some very valuable evidences regard- ing the early commerce between India and China are furnished by Chinese annals like the Kwai- Yuen Catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka. Yule’s Cathay and the Way Thither also has recorded many facts relating to the Indian intercourse with China. For the reign of Harsha the most im- portant source of information is the Travels of Hiuen Tsang, that “treasure-house of accurate information, indispensable to every student of Indian antiquity, which has done more than any archaeological discovery to render possible the remarkable resuscitation of lost Indian history which has recently been effected.”

5. The Period of Hindu Imperialism in Southern India and the rise of the Cholas, extend- ing from the middle of the 7th century up to the Mahomedan conquests in Northern India.—During this period Indian maritime intercourse was equally active with both the West and the East. The colonization of Java was completed, and the great temple of Borobudur remained a standing monu- ment of the hold which Buddhism had on that island. The field of Indian maritime enterprise was extended as far as Japan, which is testified to by Japanese tradition and official annals made acces- sible through the efforts of Japanese scholars like Dr. Taka-kusu. The record of I-Tsing, the famous Chinese traveller, contains many interesting details regarding Indian maritime activity in the Eastern waters and intercourse with China in the latter half of the 7th century. Chinese annals also furnish evidences regarding the maritime intercourse of the Cholas with China, e.g. the Sung-shih.

6. The Musalmān (pre-Mogul) Period, extending from the 11th century to the 15th.—The sources of evidence for this, and indeed the whole of the Musalman period, are mostly imbedded in Persian works which have been made accessible to scholars by the monumental History of India by Sir H. Elliot, in eight volumes. For information regarding maritime enterprise and activity in Sindh our authorities are Al-Bilāduri and Chach-nāma, translated in Elliot, vol. i. The early Musalman travellers throw much light upon Indian affairs of this period. Al-Biruni is our authority for the 11th century and Al-Idrisi for the 12th. In the 13th century a very valuable source of information regarding Indian shipping and commerce is fur- nished by a foreign traveller, the Venetian Marco Polo. Wassaf is our guide in the next century, as well as Tārikh-i-Firozhshāhi. In the 15th century we have, in the Chinese account of Mahuan, the most important foreign notice of India after Marco Polo, which relates the exchange of presents between the kings of Bengal and the emperors of China. To the same century also belong the foreign travellers Abd-er-Razzak, Nicolo Conti, and Hieronimo di Santo Stefano, who are also valuable sources of information regarding the shipping and trade of the period. In the earlier part of the 16th century, when the Portuguese first appear as a factor in Indian politics, details regarding Indian maritime activity are derivable from Portu- guese annals like De Coutto, utilized in some of the standard works on the history of the Portuguese power in India. About the same time the foreign traveller Varthema has left a very interesting account of shipbuilding in Calicut.

7. The Period of Mogul Monarchy, from the 16th century to the 18th, i.e. from the reign of Akbar to that of Aurangzeb.—The evidence for the reign of Akbar is derived, firstly, from that mine of information, Abul-Fazl’s Ayeen-i-Akbari, which gives a very valuable account of Akbar’s Admiralty ; and, secondly, from the abstract of Ausil Toomar Fumma given in Grant’s Analysis of the Finances of Bengal in the Fifth Report, in which are con- tained many interesting details regarding the organization and progress of the Imperial Nowwara or shipping stationed at Dacca, the sources of revenue for its maintenance, the materials for ship- building, and the like. The Chach-nāma in Elliot, vol. i., and Abul-Fazl’s Ayeen-i-Akbari give some details about the shipping and ports of Sindh. Some details regarding Hindu maritime activity, commerce, and shipping in Bengal are also derived from Takmilla-i-Akbarnāma in Elliot, vol. vi., from the Sanskrit work Ghataka-kārikā, from the Portuguese accounts of De Barros and Souza, from the records of other foreign travellers like Varthema and Ralph Fitch, and lastly from some old Bengali poems and songs preserving local tradition. In the reign of Aurangzeb the principal sources of our information regarding the maritime activities of the Ferenghies and of the imperial fleet are the Fathiyyah-i-ibriyyah, translated by Blochmann, and the contemporary Persian Account of Shihab-ud-dīn Talish in MS. Bodleian 589, Sachau and Ethé’s Catalogue, which is translated by Professor Jadunath Sarkar, M.A. Among foreign travellers who supply us with information for this period we may mention Thomas Bowrey, in whose account of the countries round the Bay of Bengal we have many interesting details regarding shipping and commerce. Dr. Fryer is also another similar source of our informa- tion. The same period also witnessed the develop- ment of Maratha shipping and maritime activity under Sivaji and the Peshwas, details regarding which may be derived from some of the standard works on Maratha history.

BOOK I. HINDU PERIOD.

**PART I.

Indications of Maritime Activity in Indian Literature and Art.