Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/165

 constant intercourse with foreign states, and that large numbers of strangers visited the capital on business." So great was the growth of foreign commerce that the mere taxes on imports formed a good and expanding source of revenue.

In the days of Asoka, whose empire embraced a much wider area than that of his grandfather, India was brought into systematic connection with the distant Hellenistic monarchies of Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia, and Epirus, and she soon became, through the efforts of merchants, and missionaries preaching the gospel of universal brotherhood, at once the commercial and spiritual centre, the very heart, of the Old World. This was possible only through the instrumentality of an efficient national shipping and system of communications. As Mr. V. A. Smith observes: "When we remember Asoka's relations with Ceylon and even more distant powers, we may credit him with a sea-going fleet as well as an army."

In that monumental work called Bodhisattvāvadāna Kalpalatā, by the Kashmirian poet Kshemendra, of the 10th century, is preserved a very interesting story regarding Indian mercantile activity in the Eastern waters, which clearly