Radha Kumud Mukhopadhyay

“ Her supply of gold she obtained not as did Europe from America in the 16th century by conquest or rapine, but by the more natural and peaceful method of commerce, "by the exchange of such of her productions as among the Indians were superfluities but were at the same time not only highly prized by the nations of Western Asia, Egypt, and Europe, but were obtainable from no other quarter except India, or from the farther East by means of the Indian trade." ”

“ India thus began her sea-borne trade with the very beginning of recorded time, and the trade of the Ṛig-Veda was very probably carried on with countries on the west like Chaldaea, Babylon, and Egypt. I do not feel myself competent to deal with this subject of India's prehistoric trade relations; Egyptologists or Assyriologists alone can do full justice to it. ”

“ And so do we find, as a matter of fact, in various foreign works abundant allusions to India's commerce, arts, and manufactures, indicating the glorious position she once occupied and for long maintained as the Queen of the Eastern Seas. ”

“ Sea-going merchants, availing themselves of the monsoons, were in the habit, at the beginning of the 7th (and perhaps at the end of the 8th) century B.C., of trading from ports on the southwest coast of India (Sovira at first, afterwards Supparaka and Bharukaccha) to Babylon, then a great mercantile emporium. (2) These merchants were mostly Dravidians, not Aryans. Such Indian names of the goods imported as were adopted in the West (Solomon's ivory, apes, and peacocks, for instance, and the word "rice") were adaptations not of Sanskrit or Pali, but of Tamil words. ”

“ In the abundant booty loading the vessel of Pharaoh for conveyance to the land of Egypt appear a great many Indian animals and products not indigenous to the soil of Yemen—elephants' teeth, gold, precious stones, sandal-wood, and monkeys. ”

“ It seems probable that Aryan merchants from the mouth of the Indus must have accompanied the Phoenicians and Solomon's servants in their voyages down the Malabar coast towards Ophir (wherever Ophir may have been) or at least have taken part in the trade. ... It appears certain from notices contained in the Vedas that the Aryans of the age of Solomon practised foreign trade in ocean-going vessels, but it remains uncertain to what parts their ships sailed. ”

“ Herodotus also speaks of the inclusion of a part of India as the twentieth satrapy of the Emperor Darius, [27] a fact which in the opinion of scholars accounts for the traces of Persian influence [28] on old Indian art, architecture, and administrative methods. Among Indian products Herodotus noted the wool which certain wild trees bear instead of fruit, "that in beauty and quality excels that of sheep," [29] of which Indians make their clothing. ”

“ India also supplied foreign countries with oils, brassware, a liquid preparation of the sugar-cane, salt, drugs, dyes, and aromatics, while she had also a monopoly in the matter of the supply of pepper, cinnamon, and other edible spices, which were in great request throughout Europe. ”

“ More than this, however, recent explorations have confirmed the fact, often previously asserted, that in Southern India there are indications of extended mining operations having been carried on there.
Evidence exists of the most conclusive kind of large quantities of gold having been amassed by Indian monarchs, who accepted a revenue in gold-dust only from certain sections of their subjects, who were consequently compelled to spend several months of every year washing for it in the rivers. ”

“ In the days of Solomon (about 1015 B.C.) there could be supplied from India alone the ivory, garments, armour, spices, and peacocks which found customers in ancient Syria. In the Book of I Kings it is stated [17] how the ships of Solomon came to Ophir and fetched from thence gold, plenty of almug trees, precious stones, and the like. In the Book of Ezekiel, which dwells on the commerce of Tyre, there are mentioned commodities which are undoubtedly of Indian origin. ”

“ We may also note in this connection that in the Digha Nikaya (I. 222) of Sutta-Pitaka, the date of which has been placed by Mr. Rhys Davids [8] in the 5th century B.C., there is an explicit reference to "ocean-going ships out of sight of land." ”

“ Babylon obtained precious stones and dogs (probably Tibetan mastiffs) from India. [30] In the enumeration of the nations and tribes which paid tribute to the Persian monarch Darius, the Indians alone, we are told, paid in gold, all the others paying in silver. The amount of this gold was 360 Euboic talents, equivalent to £1,290,000. Herodotus also pointedly speaks of India as being "rich in gold," [31] and he relates the famous and widespread fable of the gold-digging ants, which has been shown by Sir Henry Robinson and Dr. ”

“ Ibid. 15: "They brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony." ↑ Strabo, xv. 37: "Ebony grows there." ↑ History of Plants, iv. 4, 6, quoted by McCrindle. ↑ Georg. i. 57: "India produces ivory." The Periplus also mentions logs of ebony exported from Barygaza-Broach. ↑ Dr. Caldwell, in his Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, p. 91. We may remember also in this connection the well-known reference in the Baveru-Jātaka to voyages made by Indian merchants to Babylon, in the second of which they took thither the first peacock for sale. ”