Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/111

 the Pāṇdava brothers from the destruction planned for them in a ship that was secretly and specially constructed for the purpose under orders of the kind-hearted Vidura. The ship was of a large size, provided with machinery and all kinds of weapons of war, and able to defy storms and waves.

But besides the epics, the vast mass of Sutra literature also is not without evidences pointing to the commercial connection of India with foreign countries by way of the sea. That these evidences are sufficiently convincing will probably be apparent from the following remarks of the well-known German authority, the late Professor Bühler: "References to sea voyages are also found in two of the most ancient Dharma Sutras. Baudhāyana, Dh. S. ii. 2. 2, forbids them to the orthodox Brahmans, and prescribes a severe penance for a transgression of the prohibition, but he admits, Dh. S. i. 2. 4, that such transgressions were common among the 'Northerners' or, strictly speaking, the Aryans