Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/142

INDIAN SHIPPING

I.C.S.^[1] According to him, "the Buddhist Jatakas^[2] and some of the Sanskrit law-books^[3] tell us that ships from Bhroach and Supara traded with Babylon (Baveru) from the 8th to the 6th century B.C."

There have been also other scholars who are disposed to view this maritime commerce of India with the West as of very great antiquity. According to Lenormant, the bas-reliefs of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari at Thebes represent the conquest of the land of Pun under Hatasu. "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." Again, "The labours of Von Bohlen (Das alte Indien, vol. i., p. 42), confirming those of Heeren, and in their turn confirmed by those of Lassen (Ind. Alt., vol. ii., p. 580), have established the existence of a maritime commerce between India and Arabia from the very earliest period of humanity."^[4] The principal commodities imported from India were gold, precious stones, ivory, etc.

1. Bombay City Gazetteer, vol. ii., ch. vi., p. 3.
2. Nos. 339 and 463 (Fausboll).
3. S.B.E., ii. 228; xiv. 146, 200, 217.
4. Hist. Anc. del Orient, English edition, vol. ii., pp. 299, 301, quoted in I.A., vol. xiii., p. 228.

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