Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/130

 imported by hundreds from the North and from Sindh.

The conclusions regarding the state of Indian trade to which these various hints in the Jātakas point may be thus summed up in the words of Mrs. Rhys Davids:—

Communication both inland and foreign was of course effected by caravans and water. The caravans are described as consisting of five hundred carts drawn by oxen. They go both east and west from Benares and Patna as centres. The objective was probably the ports on the west coast, those on the sea-board of Sobira (the Sophir (Ophir) of the Septuagint) in the Gulf of Cutch or Bharukaccha. From here there was interchange by sea with Baveru (Babylon) and probably Arabia, Phoenicia, and Egypt. . . . Westward merchants are often mentioned as taking ships from Benares, or lower down at Champa, dropping down the great river, and either coasting to Ceylon or adventuring many days without sight of land to Suvannabhumi (Chryse Chersonesus, or possibly inclusive of all the coast of Farther India).