Page:Indian Shipping, a history of the sea-borne trade and maritime activity of the Indians from the earliest times.djvu/53



has been already pointed out that though Sanskrit and Pali literature abounds in references to the trading voyages of Indians, they unfortunately furnish but few references having a direct bearing on the ships and shipbuilding of India which enabled her to keep up her international connections. I have, however, been able to find one Sanskrit work, which is something like a treatise on the art of shipbuilding in ancient India, setting forth many interesting details about the various sizes and kinds of ships, the materials out of which they were built, and the like; and it sums Up in a condensed form all the available information and knowledge about that truly ancient industry of India. The book requires a full notice, and its contents have to be explained.