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BUDDHIST TADI.4
right down to the mouths of the Ganges, and thence either across or along the coast to Burma.' In the early books we hear only of the traffic downward as far as Magadha, that is, to take the farthest point, Champā. Upwards it went thence to Kosambi, where it met the traffic from the south (Route 1), and was continued by cart to the south-west and north-west.
Besides the above we are told of traders going from Videha to Gandhāra," from Magadha to Sovīra,' from Bharukaccha round the coast to Burma," from Benares down the river to its mouth and thence on to Burma, from Champā to the same destination. In crossing the desert west of Rājputāna the caravans are said' to travel only in the night, and to be guided by a “land-pilot," who, just as one does on the ocean, kept the right route by observing the stars. The whole description of this journey is too vividly accurate to life to be an invention. So we may accept it as evidence not only that there was a trade route over the desert, but also that pilots, guiding ships or caravans by the stars only, were well known.
In the solitary instance of a trading journey to Babylon (Baveru) we are told that it was by sea, but the port of departure is not mentioned. There is one story, the world-wide story of the Sirens, who
I That is at Thaton, then called Suvanna-bhūmi, the Gold Coast. See Dr. Mabel Bode in the Sāšana Vamsa, p. 12. ? Jät. 3. 365. * Jāt. 3. 188.
6 Ibid, 6. 32-35. 31. V. A. 370. 5 Ibid. 4. 15-17.
Ibil. 1. 103. * Ibid. 3. 126. Has the foreign country called Seruma (Jät. 3. 189) any connection with Sumer or the land of Akkad?
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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