Vol. 12 · pages 36–40

15COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST comes the intercourse between India the kingdom of India. In spite of the evidences to be found in the Bible, writers have been very little disposed to credit it for historical purpose. The evidence is too strong to be slighted”.1 Suited in the mainland, Judea was not in a position to develop a direct trade with India. She had no water-front at all and consequently no harbours. She had entirely to depend upon the Egyptians and the Syrians who controlled the sea and the trade routes of India. The galleys of India brought their goods to Yemen or Arabia Felix. Yemen was the great mart for Indian goods : it was a distributing centre and from it Indian commodities were taken to Syria by the caravan or to Egypt by the Egyptian Vessels. “From the very earliest ages the refined civilization of Egypt and Syria sought with avidity the spices, the aromatics, the metals, the precious and scented woods, the gems, the ivory in a kind, all the valuable merchandise which the rich soil of India supplied in abundance.” 2 King Solomon, however, when he came to the throne, tried to get the control of Indian trade. He saw that the Egyptian power was on its decline and realized that importance of utilizing Idumee as sea port on the Red Sea and which had inherited as the conquest of his father—for materialising his plans of direct trade relations with India. But since the Jews had not been experienced in the art of navigation, he had to seek the cooperation of Hirain, the king of the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were the pioneers in navigation. Whether they dealt directly with India is a subject of great controversy. Mr. Robertson is favourably inclined. After showing how the poverty of the land compelled the Phoenicians to subsist by commerce, he goes on to say, “among the various branches of their commerce, that with India may be regarded as one of the most considerable and most lucrative as by their situation on the mediterranean, and the imperfect state of navigation, they could not attempt to open a direct communication with India by sea: the enterprising spirit of commerce prompted them to west from the Idumacans some commodious harbours towards the bottom of the Arabian Gulf. From these they held a regular intercourse with India on 1 cf. W. Robertson “Disquisition” p.9-10. 2 I. Lenorment and E. Chevallier, “Ancient History of the East Vol. I, p. 144.

16 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES the one hand, and with the eastern and southern coasts of Africa on the other. The distance, however, from the Arabian Gulf to Zyre, was considerable, and rendered the conveyance of goods to it by land carriages so heavious and extensive that it became necessary for them to take possession of Phinocolura, the nearest port in the mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf, thither all the commodities brought from India were conveyed overland by a route much shorter, and more practicable, than that by which the productions of the East were carried at a subs equent period from the opposite shore of the Arabian Gulf to the Nile. At Rhinocolura they were re-shipped, and transported by an Easy navigation to Tyre, and distributed throughout the world. This, as it is the earliest route of communication with India of which we have any authentic discription, had so many advantages over any ever known, before the modern discovery of a new course of navigation to the east, that the Phoenicians could apply other nations with the productions of India in greater abundance and at a cheaper rate, than any people of antiquity.” 1 Another evidence supporting the view of Mr. Robertson is to be found in the fact that the Phoenicians introduced their letters in India a direct proof of their intercourse. King Solomon, stimulated or otherwise by the neighbouring Phoenicians, joined hands with Hiram, king of Tyre and built a fleet at Elath and Eziongeher. Manned by Phoenician sailors, it sailed to Qphir and brought back many treasures which two kings shared between themselves. The location of Qphir is another unsettled topic. But for all practical purposes Prof. Lassen had closed the controversy by identifying it with Abhira in the province of Gujrat in India. With the interval of three years, the voyage was repeated and the ships laden with all precious articles to enrich the country so much so that “the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and cedars made her to be as Sycamore trees that are in the vale for abundance”.2 Thus all the advantages of trade were secured for the people with exposing to the dangers attendant upon it. Consequently in the words of Dean Stanley (Senai and Palestinep. 261) “To describe the capital as a place where shall 1 W. Robertson “Disquisition” p. 7-8. 2 I Kings X27.

17COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass by” (Isaiah XXXIII 21) is not, as according to western notions it would be an expression of weakness and danger, but of prosperity and security.” The trade between India and Judea does not date with Soloman : it enjoys considerable antiquity; mentions of Qphir are to be found long before the time of Soloman in the I Chronicles XXIX, 4, I kings XXII 48, and in Isaiah, XIII 12. These Biblical evidences may be supplemented by linguistic evidences such as the Hebrew word tuki which is but a little changed form of the poetical word Tokei i.e. the Tamilmalayalam language for peacock or the Hebrew word Ahalim or Aholoth— ‘aloes’—a corruption of the Tamil-malayalam word, Aghil.1 The rise of Babylonia marks the high water mark in the ancient commercial activity of India. Situated at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris joining the Persian Gulf with the mediterranean and being a meeting place of upper and lower Asia, Babylon was destined to be the great emporium of the eastern and western trade. It was the meeting place of routes from all parts of the ancient world. There is ample evidence, says Mr. Kennedy, that “warrants us in the belief that maritime commerce between India and Babylon flourished in the seventh and sixth and more especially in the sixth century B.C. It was chiefly in the hands of the Dravidians although Aryans also had a share in it, and as Indian traders settled afterwards in Arabia and on the eastern coast of Africa, and as we find them settling at this very time on the coast of China, we cannot doubt that they had their settlements in Babylon also. But the sixth and seventh centuries are the culminating period of Babylonian greatness. Babylon which had been destroyed by Senkacherib and rebuilt by Esarhaddon ; Babylon, which had fused her importance and her fame to the sanctity of her temples now appears before us of a sudden as the greatest commercial mart of the world. There was no limit to her power. She arose and utterly overthrew her ancient rival and oppressor Nineveh. With Nebuchadnezzar she became the 1 cf. E. J. Simcox — “Primitive Civilizations” Vol. I, p. 545.

18 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES wonder of the world . . . . . . . . . But the secret of her greatness lay to her monopoly of the treasures of the east, in the shouting of the Chaldeans in their ships and smartly orientals who frequented her lazars. It moved the envy of the nations. Paharaoh Necho (612-596 B. C.) vainly sacrificed his subjects in order to reopen the canal which Seti I had made from the Nile to the Red Sea : and he despatched his Phoenician fleet round Africa in the hope of discovering a new world for commerce. And a long ago, the rivalry of the Spaniards and the Portuguese for the treasures of India . . . . . . . . was anticipated and equalled by the rivalry of Babylonians and Egyptians . . . . . . . . when the world was as yet one and twenty centuries younger.” 1 This commercial intercourse told very decidedly on the literature of India. Sea played an immense role and ‘ Mokar’ the monster fish was constantly alluded to. The Vedic dieties fall in the back ground and the Hindu mind of the times soared high in inventing fantastic cosmogonies as is to be found in the Vishnu Purana where it is said that “the Supreme Being placed the Earth on the summit of the ocean, where it floats like a mighty vessel and from its expansive surface does not sink beneath the waters.” The entire literature smacks of commercialism and is essentially different in nature from the early Vedic literature so much so that Prof. Max Muller in his “History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature” says, “there is throughout the Brahmanas, such a complete misunderstanding of the original intention of the Vedic hymns that we can hardly understand how such an estrangement could have taken place unless there had been at some time or other a sudden and violent breaks in the chain of tradition”. This “estrangement” can be accounted by foreign influence which follows the footsteps of commerce.” The focus of this foreign influence upon India was therefore in the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries” and certainly not “later than the time of Buddha, for this great teacher found all India believing in metempsychosis, which is not a Vedic doctrine” and must therefore be an exotic. 2 It must not however be supposed that the maritime activity of the Hindoos dates from the period : nay sea-farming had become a matter of habit with 1 J. Kennedy J. R. A. S. 1898, p. 270-1. * Rev. Joshep Edkins J. R. A. S. 1886, p. 6.

19COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST them : Buddha in the Kevaddhu Sutta of the Digha (fifth century B.C.) says by way of simile “Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to plunge forth upon the sea, on board a ship, taking with them a shore-sighting bird. When the ship was out of sight of land they would set the shore-sighting bird free. And it would go to the east and to the south and to the west and to the north, and to the intermediate points, and rise aloft. If on the horizon it caught sight of land, thither it would go back to the ship again. Just so, brother etc.” Mr. Rhys Davids comments that such a Simitic would scarcely be made use of, in ordinary talk, unless the habit referred to were of some standing and matter of general knowledge.” 1 The decline of Babylon however was as sudden as her rise and dates from the reign of king Darius (579-484 B. C). From the fifth century on, we no longer find the commercial tablets that were so numerous in earlier times. The Persian conquest not only destroyed Babylon but extended to Egypt. The canals build for riverine traffic decayed and the flow of the rivers was impeded by dams : as a result of this the Arabs became the caviers of trade and Yemen interests the splendour of Babylon and Palmyrs The Chaldeans also in spite of the sweeping expeditions of Darius continued their trade by establishing their colonies at Gerrha and other places. The conquests Darius brought under his rule a vast Empire which bacame contiguous with that of the empire of Alexander. It was quite impossible for the two emperors full of earth hunger remain as goodly neighbours, friction was bound to arise and Alexander waiting for an opportunity set out on his career of conquest. In one sweep he destroyed the empire of Darius and extended his dominion over Egypt, Central Asia and the northern part of India. The motives of Alexander’s gigantic expedition are a matter of conjecture. Vindication for humiliation suffered at the hands of Darius has been put forth as one of them. Prof. Lassen, however radically enough, ventures to say that greed of gold was the object of Alexander’s expedition and that it was whetted by 1 J. R . A. S. 1899, Vol. 31, p.432