Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/150

 The further remarks of Professor Ball in this connection are worth quoting in full:—

In Ctesias' Indica (400 B.C.), the earliest Greek treatise on India, is to be found, among other things, the existence of a really Dravidian word which Ctesias used for cinnamon. The word used by Ctesias is karpion, which Dr. Caldwell derives from the Tamil-Malayalam word karuppa or karppu, to which is akin the Sanskrit word karpura "camphor."