Sea-borne trade
Puranas
The Puranas also furnish references to merchants engaged in sea-borne trade. The Varaha Purana mentions a childless merchant named Gokarna who embarked on a voyage for trading purposes but was overtaken by a storm on the sea and nearly shipwrecked. The same Purana contains a passage that relates how a merchant embarked on a voyage in a sea-going vessel in quest of pearls with people who knew all about them.
But besides the religious works like the Vedas, the Epics, and the Sutras and Puranas, the secular works of Sanskrit poets and writers are also full of references to the use of the sea as the highway of commerce, voyages, and naval fights. Thus in Kalidasa Raghuvamsa (canto 4, sloka 36), we find the defeat by Raghu of a strong naval force with which the kings of Bengal attacked him, and his planting of the pillars of victory on the isles formed in the midst of the river Ganges. The Shakuntala also relates the story of a merchant named Dhanavriddhi whose immense wealth devolved to the king of the former are perishing at sea and leaving no heirs behind him. In Sakuntala, we learn of the importance attached to commerce, where it is stated: "that a merchant named Dhanvriddhi, who had extensive commerce had been lost at sea and had left a fortune of many millions." In Nala and Damyanti, too, we meet with similar incidents.
The Sisupalavadha of the poet Magha contains an interesting passage that mentions how Sri Krishna while going from Dvaraka to Hastinapura, beholds merchants coming from foreign countries in ships laden with merchandise and again exporting abroad Indian goods.
The expansion of Indian culture and influence both towards Central Asia and the south-east towards the countries and islands of the Pacific is one of the momentous factors of the period immediately preceding the Christian era. From the first century A.D., a systematic policy of expansion led to the establishment of Hindu kingdoms in Annam, Cochin-China, and the islands of the Pacific. The Ramayana knew of Java and Sumatra. Communication by sea between the ports of south India and the islands of the Pacific was well established many centuries before the Christian era. The discovery and colonization of Sumatra, Java and Borneo were the results of oceanic navigation. The allusions in the Ramayana to Java and Ptolemy's mention of Yava-wipe in the first century A.D. clearly establish the fact that Java had come under Indian influence at least by the beginning of the Christian era.
The reaction to this overseas activity on India was very considerable. An explanation of the immense wealth of the merchants who made such munificent endowments as witnessed by the inscriptions in the temples of the Satvahana period lies in the great overseas trade. Tamil literature of the first centuries, especially Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai also testify to this great overseas trade while in Kalidasa we have the allusion to ships laden with spices from distant lands lying in Kalinga ports.
(source: India Through The Ages - By K. M. Panikkar Discovery Publishing House. Delhi 1985. p.84- 93).
The Puranas also furnish references to merchants engaged in sea-borne trade. The Varaha Purana mentions a childless merchant named Gokarna who embarked on a voyage for trading purposes but was overtaken by a storm on the sea and nearly shipwrecked. The same Purana contains a passage that relates how a merchant embarked on a voyage in a sea-going vessel in quest of pearls with people who knew all about them.
But besides the religious works like the Vedas, the Epics, and the Sutras and Puranas, the secular works of Sanskrit poets and writers are also full of references to the use of the sea as the highway of commerce, voyages, and naval fights. Thus in Kalidasa Raghuvamsa (canto 4, sloka 36), we find the defeat by Raghu of a strong naval force with which the kings of Bengal attacked him, and his planting of the pillars of victory on the isles formed in the midst of the river Ganges. The Shakuntala also relates the story of a merchant named Dhanavriddhi whose immense wealth devolved to the king of the former are perishing at sea and leaving no heirs behind him. In Sakuntala, we learn of the importance attached to commerce, where it is stated: "that a merchant named Dhanvriddhi, who had extensive commerce had been lost at sea and had left a fortune of many millions." In Nala and Damyanti, too, we meet with similar incidents.
The Sisupalavadha of the poet Magha contains an interesting passage that mentions how Sri Krishna while going from Dvaraka to Hastinapura, beholds merchants coming from foreign countries in ships laden with merchandise and again exporting abroad Indian goods.
The expansion of Indian culture and influence both towards Central Asia and the south-east towards the countries and islands of the Pacific is one of the momentous factors of the period immediately preceding the Christian era. From the first century A.D., a systematic policy of expansion led to the establishment of Hindu kingdoms in Annam, Cochin-China, and the islands of the Pacific. The Ramayana knew of Java and Sumatra. Communication by sea between the ports of south India and the islands of the Pacific was well established many centuries before the Christian era. The discovery and colonization of Sumatra, Java and Borneo were the results of oceanic navigation. The allusions in the Ramayana to Java and Ptolemy's mention of Yava-wipe in the first century A.D. clearly establish the fact that Java had come under Indian influence at least by the beginning of the Christian era.
The reaction to this overseas activity on India was very considerable. An explanation of the immense wealth of the merchants who made such munificent endowments as witnessed by the inscriptions in the temples of the Satvahana period lies in the great overseas trade. Tamil literature of the first centuries, especially Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai also testify to this great overseas trade while in Kalidasa we have the allusion to ships laden with spices from distant lands lying in Kalinga ports.
(source: India Through The Ages - By K. M. Panikkar Discovery Publishing House. Delhi 1985. p.84- 93).
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