Sambodhi 1998 Vol 21

Author(s): J B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 49

44
RAVINDRANATH VAMAN RAMDAS
SAMBODHI
The geographer Ibn Said who probably died about 1286 states that the inhabitants of Kilwa were brothers to those of India and Sind. The Venetian traveller Marco Polo refers in his book to the ships of Maabar (Coromandel), which visit this island of Madagascar and that other of Zanzibar. He also adds that the journey from India took twenty days
When Vasco da Gama reached the East Coast of Africa in 1498 A. D., he found Hindu merchants at a number of ports. Vasco da Gama was guided by two Indians in his voyage from East Africa to Calicut in South India“7. He notes that Indians guided themselves by the help of the stars in the North and South and had nautical instruments of their own. It was a Gujrati named Cana, who piloted Vasco da Gama directly across the Indian Ocean to Calicut 48.
REFERENCES :
1. G. M. Sarah, The people of South Africa, 1951, p. 223. 2. R. Reush, History of East Africa, p. 29. 3. K. M. Pannikar, India and Indian Ocean, 1962, p. 24. 4. B. G. Gokhale, Ancient India, 1962, pp. 16-17. 5. S. R. Rao, Dawn and Devolution of Indus Civilization, 1991, p. 15. 6. Del Mar Alexander cited by "Indian Marks upon Early Egypt" Indian Review
(Madras) Jan. 1908, pp. 4-8. 7. Ibid. 8. H. D. Sankalia, “Stone Age Findings in Saurashtra, a Link with Harrapan Era, "The
Times of India, 28th April, 1963, p. 8. 9. Del Mar Alexander op. cit. 10. Sarayu Doshi, Ed. 'India and Egypt - Influences and Interactions' 1993, p. 44. 11. Ibid. 12. C. H. V. Southerland, Gold, London, 1959, pl. 4. 13. Doshi, op. cit. p. 44. 14. Rigveda 1 - 97-788; Rigveda 1 - 48-3. 15. Ibid. 16. V. R. Dikshitar, War in Ancient India, p. 189. 17. B. C. Law, Study in Mahavamsa, p. 40. cited by Miss Nandita Uppal (Dharval) in
her Doctoral Thesis on “Maritime Trade of South India (400 - 200 B. C. & 320550 A. D.). Anantacharya Indological Research Institute, Bombay, 1989.