INDIAN SHIPPING
selves to a period of one thousand years beginning from 500 B.C. The Baveru-Jātaka[1] without doubt points to the existence of commercial intercourse between India and Babylon in pre-Asokan days. The full significance of this important Jātaka is thus expressed by the late Professor Bühler: "The now well-known Baveru-Jātaka, to which Professor Minayef first drew attention, narrates that Hindu merchants exported peacocks to Baveru. The identification of Baveru with Babiru or Babylon is not doubtful," and considering the "age of the materials of the Jātakas, the story indicates that the Vanias of Western India undertook trading voyages to the shores of the Persian Gulf and of its rivers in the 5th, perhaps even in the 6th century B.C. just as in our days. This trade very probably existed already in much earlier times, for the Jātakas contain several other stories, describing voyages to distant lands and perilous adventures by sea, in which the names of the very ancient Western ports of Surparaka-Supara and Bharukaccha-Broach are occasionally mentioned." The Samudda-Vanija-Jātaka[2] tells the story of the village[3] of wood-wrights who, failing to deliver the goods[4] (furniture,
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