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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Recent discoveries in Central Asia exhibit political and diplomatic relations of India with Central Asian states (so often referred to in Indian literature).
As for commercial intercourse, Von Ihering (in his Prehistoric Indo-Europeans) and J. Kennedy (in JRAS., 1898, pp. 241-88) have shown the activity of the early Indians in trading with the Persian Gulf tribes. A couple of Kanarese sentences found embodied in the Greek farce in the Papyrus of Oxyrhynchus of the first or second century A.D. indicates commercial relations of an intimate nature between Egypt and the Kanarese-speaking Dravidians of Southern India. Cornelius Nepos (who died in the reign of Emperor Augustus, 14 8.0.-A.D. 14) had mentioned Indian commercial activity even in Germany. There are clear statements in Tamil literature supporting Fahien's mention of early Indians' voyage to Java, Sumatra and China."
[APRIL, 1921
As for religious activity in this direction, Asoka's sending Buddhist Missionaries to Syria, Egypt and Macedonia is known to all students of History. The recent discoveries in India's Central Asia exhibit the great influence of Buddhist Missionaries in that region. connection with Tibet, China and Manchuria does not require any comment. Even such a distant place as Lord North's Island in Micronesia was indebted to Buddhist Missionaries for its religious instruction.
We thus see that the political, commercial, and religious activities of early Indians made them acquainted with the greater part of the then known countries of the world. And this acquaintance certainly broadened their knowledge of the geography of foreign lands. And though, owing to their so-called want of historical faculty or to their want of vanity, they left no autobiographies or private memoirs, peripli or itineraries like those of Fahien or Yuanchwang to perpetuate their names, yet, the stock of knowledge thus accumulated was not completely lost. It has been preserved in a corrupted form in the epic and Puranic conception of the world as containing seven concentric islands Jambu, Sāka. Kusa, Salmala, Krauncha, Gomeda (Gomanda or Plaksha), and Pushkara encircled by seven samudras. 10 Though this conception is childish, we ought not to compare it with that of the twentieth century and stigmatize it as ridiculous. If we compare this fourth or third century B.C. conception of the earth with even the tenth or eleventh century Christian conception as depicted in the maps reproduced in Keane's Evolution of Geography (Edward Stanford, London, 1899), it would not certainly appear to be more ridiculous. The true conception of the earth is a thing of modern times-it was formed after the first circumnavigation. Ancient nations had strange notions. The conception of the different parts of • M'Crindle's Anc. Ind., p. 110.
JRAS., 1904, pp. 399-105.
7 Aiyangar's Beginnings of South Indian Hist., pp. 113-4. 8 Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. V, 194.
The order varies in different sources.
10 The Buddhist system counts eight dvipas and has different names for some of the Samudras. (See Pulle's Studi Italiani di Filologia Indo-Iranica, vol. IV, pp. 15-16; see also JRAS., 1902, p. 142; 1907, p. 42.) In Jaina tradition we have new names. A chapter entitled Diva-samudda inserted incidentally in Jivabhigama-sutra names the following dipas:-1. Jambu, 2. Dhdyai-Khanda, 3. Pukkharavara, 4. Varunavara, 5. Khiravara, 6. Ghatavara, 7. Khodavara, 8. Nandisaravara, 9. Arunavara, 10. Arusovara. edea, 11. Kundalo, 12. Kundalavara, 13 Kundalavaravasa, 14. Ruyaga, 15. Ruyagavara, 16. Ruyagavaracasa, 17. Héra, 18. Haravara, 19. Hůravaravisa. The names of the first two oceans are Lavana-samudda and Kloya (Sk. Kâloda); the other names are made by adding uda (water) to the names of the dvipas. Bhagavati-Sutra (II, 8, 1-9) states ayam Jambuddiva savva-diva-samuddinam savvabbhantare and that the first three only of the above dvipas are inhabited by men-the Trikhanda (II, 9, 1-2). (See Pulle's Studi, IV, pp. 19-20; JBRRAS., II, p. 411.)
