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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. V
the help of a land pilot' (thala niyyamaka) to cross them over during the cooler periods of the night, being guided by the position of stars.1
Such caravans might have started from Banaras, the chief industrial and commercial centre as mentioned in the Buddhist works, across the deserts of Rajaputana westward to the seaport of Bharukaccha, the present Broach and the sea-port of Sovira and its capital city, Rorura or Roruka.
It was probably from these ports that the Indian merchants established their trade relation with Babylon or Baveru. This evidence is supported by the fact that the Milindapanha' has left an account of the main objective of India's oversea-trade at a later date.
FIFTH SECTION
Roads and Communications
Roads and communications are the most essential factors for the defence, economic development and material prosperity of a country, because they are the arteries of the state-body through which flows the volume of trade and commerce to its different parts and to the outside world.
Thus they bring the people of the society into a closer contact and help them in establishing the economic, political, social and cultural relations with the foreign countries by facilitating the exchange of mutual thoughts and ideas carried through the external affairs, trade and commerce of a state.
It is a well known fact in the history of ancient India how the caravans of Indian merchants and her sea-traders helped indirectly in spreading her religions and cultures to central Asia, China, Africa, Simhala, Suvarnadvipa and Kamboja respectively,
1 Jātaka, 1, 107. 2 Ib, III, 188; IV. 137. Ib, III, 470. 80, II, 235; Divyāvadāna, 544.
Milindapañha, 359; Trans. II, 269 (S. B. E. ) XXXVI.
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