chapter 20

. He then digresses to give an account of the coast of India, starting from the mouth of the Ganges, whence to Point Calingon (Point Godâvari) and the city of Dandaguda (Cunningham's Râja Mahendri, but more probably the Dhanakataka or Dhenukâkata of the Western cave inscriptions) he reckons 625 miles. The distance thence to Tropina (Tirupanatara near Kochin according to Burgess) is 1225 miles. Next at a distance of 750 miles is the cape of Perimula, where is the most famous mart of India. Further on in the same chapter is mentioned a city named Automula on the sea shore among the Arabastræ (or Salabastræ and Oratæ, McCrindle) a noble mart where five rivers together flow into the sea. There can hardly be a doubt that the two places are the same, the two names being taken from different authorities, and that the place meant is Chemula or Cheul (Ptolemy's Simulla) the five rivers being those that flow into Bombay Harbour northward of Cheul. The distance from Perimula to the Island of Patala in the Indus is 620 miles. Pliny next enumerates as hill tribes between the Indus and Jamna, shut in a ring of mountains and deserts for a space of 625 miles, the Cæsi (the Kekioi of Arr. Ind. IV. and Kêkayas of the Purânas, about the head waters of the Sutlej), the Cetriboni of the woods (... Vana?), the Megallæ (Mêkalas) with 500 elephants and unknown numbers of horse and foot, the Chrysei (Karûsha) Parasangæ (Pârasava, corrupted by the likeness of its first three syllables to the word parasanga, the Asmagi (Asmaka of Varâha Mihira) with 30,000 foot 300 elephants and 800 horse. These are shut in by the Indus and surrounded by a circle of mountains and deserts for 625 miles. Next come the Dari and Suræ and then deserts again for 187 miles. Whether these are or are not correctly identified with the Dhars and Saurs of Sindh, they must be placed somewhere to the north of the Ran. Below them come five kingless tribes living in the hills along the sea-coast--the Maltecoræ, Singhæ, Marohæ, Rarungæ, and Moruni--none of whom are satisfactorily identified, but who may be placed in Kachh. Next follow the Nareæ, enclosed by Mount Capitalia (Âbu) the highest mountain in India, on the other side of which are mines of gold and silver. The identification of Capitalia with Âbu is probable enough, but the name given to the mountain must be connected with the Kapishthala of the Purânas, who have given their name to one of the recensions of the Yajur Veda, though Kaithal, their modern representative, lies far away from Âbu in the Karnâl district of the Panjâb, and Arrian places his kambistholoi (Ind. IV) about the head waters of the Hydraôtês (Râvî). After Capitalia and the Nareæ come the Oratæ with but ten elephants but numerous infantry. These must be the Aparântakas of the inscriptions and purânas, Megasthenês having learnt the name in a Prâkrit form (Avarâta, Orâta). The name of the next tribe, who have no elephants but horse and foot only, is commonly read Suarataratæ (Nobbe) but the preferable reading is Varetatæ (McCrindle) which when corrected to Varelatæ represents Varalatta, the sixth of the seven Konkans in the purânic lists (Wilson As. Res. XV. 47), which occupied the centre of the Thána district and the country of the wild tribe of the Varlîs. Next are the Odonbæores, whose name is connected with the udumbara Ficus glomerata tree, and who are not the Audumbari Sâlvas of Pânini (IV. i. 173) but must be placed in Southern Thána. Next come the Arabastræ Oratæ (so read for Arabastræ Thorace of Nobbe, and Salabastræ Horatæ of McCrindle) or Arabastra division of the Oratæ or Konkanîs. Arabastra may be connected with the Ârava of Varâha-Mihira's South-Western Division (Br. S. XIV. 17) where they are mentioned along with Barbara (the seventh or northernmost Konkan). This tribe had a fine city in a marsh infested by crocodiles and also the great mart of Automula (Cheul) at the confluence of five rivers, and the king had 1600 elephants 150,000 foot and 5000 horse, and must therefore have held a large part of the Dakhan as well as of the sea coast. Next to this kingdom is that of the Charmæ, whose forces are small, and next to them the Pandæ (Pândya of Travancor) with 300 cities 150,000 foot and 500 elephants. Next follows a list of thirteen tribes, some of which St. Martin has identified with modern Râjput tribes about the Indus, because the last name of the thirteen is Orostræ, "who reach to the island of Patala," and may be confidently identified with the Saurâshtra of Kâthiâvâda. We must however assume that Megasthenês after naming the tribes of the west coast enumerates the inland tribes of the Dakhan until he arrives at the point from which he started. But the only identification that seems plausible is that of the Derangæ with the Telingas or Telugus. Next to the Orostræ follows a list of tribes on the east of the Indus from south to north--the Mathoæ (compare Mânthava, a Bâhîka town Pân. IV. ii. 117), Bolingæ (Bhâulingi, a Sâlva tribe Pân. IV. i. 173), Gallitalutæ (perhaps a corruption of Tâilakhali, another Sâlva tribe, ib.), Dimuri, Megari, Ardabæ, Mesæ (Matsya of Jaipur?), Abi, Suri, (v. 1. Abhis Uri), Silæ, and then deserts for 250 miles. Next come three more tribes and then again deserts, then four or five (according to the reading) more tribes, and the Asini whose capital is Bucephala (Jalâlpur) (Cunningham Anc. Geog. 177). Megasthenês then gives two mountain tribes and ten beyond the Indus including the Orsi (Urasâ) Taxilæ (Takshasilâ) and Peucolitæ (people of Pushkâlavatî). Of the work of Dêïmachos, who went on an embassy to Allitrochadês (Bindusâra) son of Candragupta, nothing is known except that it was in two books and was reckoned the most untrustworthy of all accounts of India (Strabo, II. i. 9).

[Ptolemy II.] Ptolemy II. Philadelphos (died 247 B.C.) interested himself in the trade with India and opened a caravan road from Koptos on the Nile to Berenikê on the Red Sea (Strabo, XVII. i. 45) and for centuries the Indian trade resorted either to this port or to the neighbouring Myos Hormos. He also sent to India (apparently to Asoka) an envoy named Dionysius, who is said by Pliny (VI. 17) to have written an account of things Indian of which no certain fragments appear to remain. But we know from the fragments of [Agatharkhides.] Agatharkhides (born c. 250 A.D.) who wrote in old age an account of the Red Sea of which we have considerable extracts in Diodôros (III. 12-48) and Phôtios (Müller's Geogr. Gr. Min. I. 111ff), states that in his time the Indian trade with Potana (Patala) was in the hands of the Sabæans of Yemen. (Müller, I. 191.) In fact it was not until the voyages of Eudoxos (see below) that any direct trade sprang up between India and Egypt. The mention of Patala as the mart resorted to by the Arabs shows that we are still in Pliny's first period (see below).

[The Baktrian Greeks.] The Baktrian Greeks extended their power into India after the fall of the Mâurya empire (c. 180 B.C.) their leader being Dêmêtrios son of Euthydêmos, whose conquests are referred to by Justin (XLI. 6) and Strabo (XI. ii. 1). But the most extensive conquests to the east and south were made by Menandros (c. 110 B.C.) who advanced to the Jumna and conquered the whole coast from Pattalênê (lower Sindh) to the kingdoms of Saraostos (Surâshtra) and Sigertis (Pliny's Sigerus?) (Strabo, XI. ii. 1). These statements of Strabo are confirmed by the author of the Periplus (c. 250 A.D.) who says that in his time drakhmai with Greek inscriptions of Menandros and Apollodotos were still current at Barygaza (Per. 47). Apollodotos is now generally thought to have been the successor of Menandros (C. 100 B.C.) (Brit. Museum Cat. of Bactrian Coins page xxxiii.). Plutarch (Reip. Ger. Princ.) tells us that Menandros' rule was so mild, that on his death his towns disputed the possession of his ashes and finally divided them.

[Eudoxos of Cyzicus.] Eudoxos of Cyzicus (c. 117 B.C.) made in company with others two very successful voyages to India, in the first of which the company were guided by an Indian who had been shipwrecked on the Egyptian coast. Strabo (II. iii. 4), in quoting the story of his doings from Poseidônios, lays more stress upon his attempt to circumnavigate Africa than upon these two Indian voyages, but they are of very great importance as the beginnings of the direct trade with India.

[Eratosthenês.] The Geographers down to Ptolemy drew their knowledge of India almost entirely from the works of Megasthenês and of the companions of Alexander. Among them Eratosthenês (c. 275-194 B.C.), the founder of scientific geography, deserves mention as having first given wide currency to the notion that the width of India from west to east was greater than its length from north to south, an error which lies at the root of Ptolemy's distortion of the map. Eratosthenês' critic Hipparkhos (c. 130 B.C.) on this point followed the more correct account of Megasthenês, and is otherwise notable as the first to make use of astronomy for the determination of the geographical position of places.

[Strabo.] Strabo (c. 63 B.C.-23 A.D.) drew his knowledge of India, like his predecessors, chiefly from Megasthenês and from Alexander's followers, but adds (XV. i. 72) on the authority of Nikolaos of Damascus (tutor to the children of Antony and Cleopatra, and envoy of Herod) (an account of three Indian envoys from a certain king Pôros to Augustus (ob. A.D. 14), who brought presents consisting of an armless man, snakes, a huge turtle and a large partridge, with a letter in Greek written on parchment offering free passage and traffic through his dominions to the emperor's subjects. With these envoys came a certain Zarmanokhêgas (Sramanâcârya, Lassen) from Bargosê (Broach, the earliest mention of the name) who afterwards burnt himself at Athens, "according to the ancestral custom of the Indians." The fact that the embassy came from Broach and passed through Antioch shows that they took the route by the Persian Gulf, which long remained one of the chief lines of trade (Per. chap. 36). If the embassy was not a purely commercial speculation on the part of merchants of Broach, it is hard to see how king Pôros, who had 600 under-kings, can be other than the Indo-Skythian Kozolakadaphes, who held Pôros' old kingdom as well as much other territory in North-West India. This if correct would show that as early as the beginning of our era the Indo-Skythian power reached as far south as Broach. The fact that the embassy took the Persian Gulf route and that their object was to open commercial relations with the Roman empire seems to show that at this period there was no direct trade between Broach and the Egyptian ports of the Red Sea. Strabo however mentions that in his time Arabian and Indian wares were carried on camels from Myos Hormos (near Râs Abu Somer) on the Red Sea to Koptos on the Nile (XVII. i. 45 and XVI. iv. 24) and dilates upon the increase of the Indian trade since the days of the Ptolemies when not so many as twenty ships dared pass through the Red Sea "to peer out of the Straits," whereas in his time whole fleets of as many as 120 vessels voyaged to India and the headlands of Ethiopia from Myos Hormos (II. v. 12 and XV. i. 13). It would seem that we have here to do with Pliny's second period of Indian trade, when Sigerus (probably Janjira) was the goal of the Egyptian shipmasters (see below). Strabo learnt these particulars during his stay in Egypt with Aelius Gallus, but they were unknown to his contemporary Diodôros who drew his account of India entirely from Megasthenês (Diod. II. 31-42) and had no knowledge of the East beyond the stories told by Jamboulos a person of uncertain date of an island in the Indian Archipelago (Bali, according to Lassen) (Diod. II. 57-60). Pomponius Mela (A.D. 43) also had no recent information as regards India.

[Pliny.] Pliny (A.D. 23-79) who published his Natural History in A.D. 77 gives a fairly full account of India, chiefly drawn from Megasthenês (see above). He also gives two valuable pieces of contemporary information:

(i) An account of Ceylon (Taprobanê) to which a freedman of Annius Plocamus, farmer of the Red Sea tribute, was carried by stress of weather in the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54). On his return the king sent to the emperor four envoys, headed by one Rachias (VI. 22).

(ii) An account of the voyage from Alexandria to India by a course which had only lately been made known (VI. 23). Pliny divides the history of navigation from the time of Nearchus to his own age into three periods:

(a) the period of sailing from Syagrus (Râs Fartak) in Arabia to Patalê (Indus delta) by the south-west wind called Hippalus, 1332 miles;

(b) the period of sailing from Syagrus (Râs Fartak) to Sigerus (Ptol. Milizêgyris, Peripl. Melizeigara, probably Janjíra, and perhaps the same as Strabo's Sigertis);

(c) the modern period, when traffic went on from Alexandria to Koptos up the Nile, and thence by camels across the desert to Berenice (in Foul Bay), 257 miles. Thence the merchants start in the middle of summer before the rising of the dogstar and in thirty days reach Okelis (Ghalla) or Cane (Hisn Ghorab), the former port being most frequented by the Indian trade. From Okelis it is a forty days' voyage to Muziris (Muyyiri, Kranganur) which is dangerous on account of the neighbouring pirates of Nitrias (Mangalor) and inconvenient by reason of the distance of the roads from the shore. Another better port is Becare (Kallada, Yule) belonging to the tribe Neacyndon (Ptol. Melkynda, Peripl. Nelkynda) of the kingdom of Pandion (Pândya) whose capital is Modura (Madura). Here pepper is brought in canoes from Cottonara (Kadattanâdu). The ships return to the Red Sea in December or January.

It is clear that the modern improvement in navigation on which Pliny lays so much stress consisted, not in making use of the monsoon wind, but in striking straight across the Indian ocean to the Malabar coast. The fact that the ships which took this course carried a guard of archers in Pliny's time, but not in that of the Periplus, is another indication that the direct route to Malabar was new and unfamiliar in the first century A.D. The name Hippalus given to the monsoon wind will be discussed below in dealing with the Periplus.

[Dionysios Periégétés.] Dionysios Periégétés who has lately been proved to have written under Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) (Christ's Griech. Litteratur Gesch., page 507) gives a very superficial description of India but has a valuable notice of the Southern Skythians who live along the river Indus to the east of the Gedrôsoi (I. 1087-88).

[Klaudios Ptolemaios.] Klaudios Ptolemaios of Alexandria lived according to Suidas under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (A.D. 161-180). He compiled his account of India as part of a geographical description of the then known world, and drew much of his materials from Marinos of Tyre, whose work is lost, but who must have written about A.D. 130. Ptolemy (or Marinos before him) had a very wide knowledge of India, drawn partly from the relations of shipmasters and traders and partly from Indian lists similar to those of the Purânas but drawn up in Prâkrit. He seems to have made little if any use of Megasthenês and the companions of Alexander. But his map of India is distorted by the erroneous idea, which he took from Eratosthenês, that the width of India from west to east greatly exceeded its length from north to south. Ptolemy begins his description of India with the first chapter of his seventh book, which deals with India within the Ganges. He gives first the names of rivers, countries, towns, and capes along the whole coast of India from the westernmost mouth of the Indus to the easternmost mouth of the Ganges. He next mentions in detail the mountains and the rivers with their tributaries, and then proceeds to enumerate the various nations of India and the cities belonging to each, beginning with the north-west and working southwards: and he finally gives a list of the islands lying off the coast. In dealing with his account of western India it will be convenient to notice together the cities of each nation which he mentions separately under the heads of coast and inland towns.

He gives the name of Indo-Skythia to the whole country on both sides of the lower course of the Indus from its junction with the Koa (Kábul river), and gives its three divisions as Patalênê (lower Sindh) Abiria (read Sabiria, that is Sauvîra or upper Sindh and Multân) and Surastrênê (Surâshtra or Kâthiâvâda). We have seen that Dionysios knew the southern Skythians of the Indus, and we shall meet with them again in the Periplus (chapter 38ff).

He enumerates seven mouths of the Indus, but the river is so constantly changing its course that it is hopeless to expect to identify all the names given by him (Sagapa, Sinthôn, Khariphron, Sapara, Sabalaessa, and Lônibare) with the existing channels. Only it may be noted that Sinthôn preserves the Indian name of the river (Sindhu) and that the easternmost mouth (Lônibare) probably represents both the present Korî or Launî and the Lûnî river of Mârwâr, a fact which goes some way to explain why Ptolemy had no idea of the existence of Kachh, though he knows the Ran as the gulf of Kanthi. Hence he misplaces Surastrênê (Surâshtra or Kâthiâvâda) in the Indus delta instead of south of the Ran. Ptolemy enumerates a group of five towns in the north-western part of Indo-Skythia (Kohat, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khân) of which Cunningham (Anc. Geog. pages 84ff) has identified Banagara with Bannu, and Andrapana with Daraban, while the sites of Artoarta, Sabana, and Kodrana are unknown. Ptolemy next gives a list of twelve towns along the western bank of the Indus to the sea. Of these Embolima has been identified by Cunningham (Anc. Geog. page 52) with Amb sixty miles above Attok, and Pasipêda is identified by St. Martin with the Besmaid of the Arab geographers and placed near Mithankot at the junction of the Chenab with the Indus. Sousikana, which comes next in the list to Pasipêda, is generally thought to be a corruption of Mousikanos, and is placed by the latest authority (General Haig, The Indus Delta Country, page 130) in Bahâwalpur, though Cunningham (Anc. Geog. page 257) puts it at Alor, which is somewhat more in accordance with Ptolemy's distances. Kôlaka the most southerly town of the list, cannot well be the Krôkala of Arrian (Karâchi) as McCrindle supposes, for Ptolemy puts it nearly a degree north of the western mouth of the Indus.

The two great towns of the delta which Ptolemy next mentions, are placed by General Haig, Patala at a point thirty-five miles south-east of Haidarâbâd (op. cit. page 19) and Barbarei near Shâh Bandar (op. cit. page 31). Barbarei is mentioned again in the Periplus (