Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/44

 by a recently published Sanskrit work, the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya, which is a mine of information regarding the manifold aspects of a highly developed material civilization witnessed by Maurya India. Bearing on this period also is the evidence of tradition preserved in that monumental work of the Kashmirian poet Kshemendra called Bodhisattvāvadāna Kalpalatā, which is now being published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the Bibliotheca Indica series. The seventy-third pallava or chapter of this work relates a story which throws some light on the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of India during the days of the Emperor Asoka.

3. The Kushan Period in the north and the Andhra Period in the south, extending roughly from the 2nd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.—This was the period when Roman influence on India was at its height; in fact, the whole of the southern peninsula under the Andhra dynasty was in direct communication with Rome, while the conquests in Northern India tended still further to open up trade with the Roman Empire, so that Roman gold poured into all parts of India in payment for her silks, spices, gems, and dye-stuffs. The evidences proving this are the remarkable finds of Roman coins, more numerous in the south than in the north, together with the references in the ancient Sanskrit and Pali works to "Romaka," or the city of Rome, and in ancient Tamil works to the