INDIAN SHIPPING
Purāṇa mentions a childless merchant named Gokarṇa who embarked on a voyage for trading purposes but was overtaken by a storm on the sea and nearly shipwrecked. The same Purāṇa[1] contains a passage which relates how a merchant embarked on a voyage in a sea-going vessel in quest of pearls with people who knew all about them. In the Mārkaṇdeya Purāṇa[2] also there is a well-known passage repeated as mantram by thousands of Brahmans which refers as an illustration to the dangerous plight of the man sailing on the great ocean in a ship overtaken by a whirlwind.
But besides the religious works like the Vedas, the Epics, and the Sutras and Purāṇas, the secular works of Sanskrit poets and writers are also full of references to the use of the sea as the highway of commerce, to voyages, and naval fights. Thus in Kālidāsa's Raghuvańsa (canto 4, sloka 36) we find the defeat by Raghu of a strong naval
- ↑
पुनस्तत्रैव गमने वणिग् भावे मतिर्गता।
समुद्रयाने रत्नानि महास्थौल्यानि साधुभिः॥
रत्न परीक्षकैः सार्द्धमानायिष्ये बहूनि च।
एवं निश्चित्य मनसा महासार्थपुरःसरः।
समुद्रयायिभिर्लोकैः संविदं सूच्यनिर्गतः॥
शुकेन सह संप्राप्तो महान्तं लवणार्णवम्।
पोतारूढ़ास्ततः सर्व्वे पोतवाहैरुपोषिता॥ - ↑ मार्कण्डेयपुराणान्तर्गतदेवीमाहात्म्ये—
राज्ञा क्रुद्धेन वाज्ञप्तो वध्यो बन्धगतोऽपि वा।
आघूर्णितो वा वातेन स्थितः पोते महार्णवे॥
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