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SOCIAL LIFE AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
lasing even for six months. The course of the ships. Was steered by the Niyyāmaka or water-pilot , the direction of land being sometimes ascertained by the flight of crows (disākākā). Rhys Davids further observes *Later texts, of about the third century B.C. speak of voyages down the Ganges from Benares to the mouth of the river and thence across the Indian Ocean to the opposite coast of Burma, and even from Bharukaccha (the modern Broach) round Cape Comorin to the sanie destination, 4
The Mahāniddesa 6 speaks of India's commerce by sea with Yona and Paramayona. If the first place be located in the Punjab, the socond place must be located either in Western Asia or identified with some Greek island in the Moditerranean, if not with Ionia proper. Towards the east, it mentions Kālamukha, Suvaņņabhūmi, Vesunga, Verāpatha, Takkola, Tamali, Tambapaņņi and Java as countries visited by the Indian sea-going merchants and speaks also of the manner in which they followed the difficult land-routes after reaching the harbour. Of the places mentioned,
1 Digha, 1, p 222, Samyutta, v, p. 51. 2nJataka, iv, p. 138 * Ibid., iii, p. 267 4 Buddhist India, p 96. 5 Mahānsddesu pp. 154-155, 416.
