Indian Antiquary Vol 42

SR No.: 032534
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 400
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 44

40
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[FEBRUARY, 1913.
Forchhammer, who rendered considerable service to the archeology of Burma, discovered there tolerably extensive ruins which go to prove an old settlement at the place. The name of the city in an inscription at Kalyâni belonging to the 15th century is explained so as to suggest that it consisted of earthen houses after the style of those constructed by the Gaula or Gola in India. It was also probably an old Indian colony from pre-Christian times similar to the one mentioned above at the foot of the Shwe Dagon Hill. In the 16th Century the city was called Takkala, and at present it is named Ayetthima. Forchhammer attempted to identify this Golanagara with the territory called Kalah mentioned by Arab geographers, and accordingly propounded quite a new hypothesis with reference to a question which had already been taken up by Sir Emerson Tennent and others. The Arabs speak about a kingdom, which bore the name of Zabedj and extended in the 8th and 9th Centuries over the Islands to the south and east of Malacca, and consequently to Java, Borneo, Sumatra, etc. To this kingdom belonged likewise the southern extremity of India and also the country in question called Kalah. This place was the centre of commerce in aloes, camphor, sandlewood, ivory, and lead. The ships coming from the east, China, and from the west, Persia, met at Kalah and exchanged their respective commodities. This Kalah therefore, must have been situated somewhere in the Indian Ocean and the supposition of Sir Emerson Tennent that it would be Point-de-Galle in Ceylon has nothing improbable about it. Even this day Ceylon constitutes the centre of commerce and the meeting point of passengers in the Indian Ocean, and if 'Point-de-Galle has been replaced as a port in course of centuries by Colombo, it was because the port of Point-de-Galle is in the first place unsafe, and secondly, because, it was the government which directed the intercourse towards the capital Colombo. In the accounts of the Arab geographers we come across a group of islands which must have existed in the vicinity of this ancient Kalah, and this has probably placed us on the right track. Sir Emerson Tennent thinks in this connection of the Maldive Islands but that is scarcely probable, because, the Maldive Islands lie two and a hal Jays' journey west of Point-de-Galle, a situation which must have proved one of great distance for the then commercial circumstances. Perhaps we would be nearer the mark if we understood by Kalah the north-west coast of Ceylon, for, as a matter of fact there does exist a group of islands in close proximity, which constitutes what is called the Adams Bridge, and which was even a connecting link with the main land in pre-historic times. In the immediate neighbourhood of Kalah lived according to Cosmas Indicopleustes the king who had the hyacinth (ὁ εις εχων τὸν ὑακινθον) which is an attempt at transcribing the precious stone district in Ceylon at present called Sabara Gamuva, and with it was connected the land where the pepper goods i.e. the district between Puttalam and Adams Peak which is known in modern times by the name of Maha Oya. The Arab geographer Abu Zayid further narrates that the country in his time was subject to two kings. . . . the one was the Sultan of Zabej whose domination extended over Malacca, the Sunda Islands, and Travancore, the other was a Singhalese king who lived as a dependent on the Sultan.
Of another opinion is the author of the anonymous work on Ceylon which appeared in 1876 in London under the title, "Ceylon, a general description of the Island, historical, physical, and statistical." He is of the view that the vessels which plied between China and Persia must have sailed from Cape Comorin straight over the Gulf of Bengal to the Nicobar Islands; they must have touched at the port of Kalah which must have been in that case one of the islands or peninsulas belonging to Hinter India, possibly, the modern Kedah near Penang. There is nothing more to adduce in support of this hypothesis except the more or less questionable similarity of pronunciation between Kedah and Kalah. This hypothesis, however, has more of probability in it than that of Forch-hammer, because, the vessels must have sailed past Kedah, while in order