Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/137

 of Indian history, the story of her old, abounding international life.

The antiquity of this trade will be evident from the fact that it is foreshadowed even in the Ṛig-Veda, one of the oldest literary records of humanity, which, as I have already shown, speaks in many places of ships and merchants sailing out into the open main for the sake of riches, braving the perils of the deep, "where there is no support, nothing to rest upon or cling to." India thus began her sea-borne trade with the very beginning of recorded time, and the trade of the Ṛig-Veda was very probably carried on with countries on the west like Chaldaea, Babylon, and Egypt. I do not feel myself competent to deal with this subject of India's prehistoric trade relations; Egyptologists or Assyriologists alone can do full justice to it. I can but briefly refer to some of the conclusions reached in regard to this subject and the evidences on which they are based. According to Dr. Sayce, the famous Assyriologist, the commerce by sea between India and Babylon must have been carried on as early as about 3000 B.C., when Ur Bagas, the first king of United Babylonia, ruled in Ur of the Chaldees. This is proved by the finding of Indian teak in the ruins of Ur. Mr. Hewitt is of opinion