Periplus, a sailor's 2000-years-old account of the Arabian Sea, had eluded me for years; I found it finally in the Stanford library. I was happy to note the mention of Syrastrênê, now called Saurashtra (Kathiawar of my childhood). Its specialities such as bdellium, costus, and lykian are no longer known; it is difficult to believe today that Syrastreans were fond of Arabian wine then. Oh, those happy times! This was published in Business Standard of 14 August 2000.
PERIPLUS TIS ERYTHRAS THALASSIS
For a long time I have been
looking for this piece of writing in Greek, better known as the Periplus of the
Erythraean Sea. Recently I came across a superb translation by Lionel Casson (The
Periplus Maris Erythraei, Princeton University Press 1989). The Periplus
was written by an unknown sailor around 30 AD. The Erythraean Sea means the Red
Sea; but at that time it denoted what is now known as the Arabian Sea. The
Periplus is really a guide in an era when there were no devices to estimate the
location of a boat on the sea. As a result, voyages across the open sea were
virtually unknown; seamen travelled by hugging the shore. But doing so greatly
increased the distance between places. Also, ships lost their way and drifted
into the open sea. When they did, their captain would steer in a direction in
which he expected to find land. But when he found it, he had to decide where he
was. Sometimes he could do it from landmarks such as mountain peaks. But all
coasts were not endowed with landmarks. And some were dangerous to approach
because of hostile tribes. A good sailor could tell where he was by looking at
other tell-tale signs on the sea itself.
The Periplus is a short
document of about 6000 words divided into 66 paragraphs. It starts at the ports
of Myos Hornos and Berenice. Myos Hornos, the Mussel harbour, is supposed to
have been close to the present Abu Sha’r in Egypt. Berenice was a port city
founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus in the third century BC; its ruins are close to
the Cape of Ras Banas. Then the Periplus guides the reader down the Red Sea and
the Gulf of Aden. It gives some scant details of the east African coast
down to Zanzibar, and turns northwards. Its author passes the coast of Oman in
some hurry; in the Kalaios isles, now known as Jazair Daimaniyat islands, dwelt
“rascals who do not do much looking during the daytime” – that is, pirates who
roamed the seas at night. There was an Omana in his time, but it was somewhere
on the coast of Baluchistan or Iran, and not in the Arabian peninsula. This is
where the author first mentions Indians: “Customarily the merchants of Barygaza
(Broach) deal with it, sending out big vessels to both of Persis’s ports of
trade [Apologos and Omana], with supplies of copper, teakwood, and beams,
saplings and logs of sissoo and ebony…”
Sailing east from Omana the
sailor comes to Skythia as the Greeks called Sind; “through it flows the
Sinthos River, mightiest of the rivers along the Erythraean Sea and emptying so
great an amount of water into the sea that far off, before you reach land, its
light-coloured water meets you out at sea.”
Its main port, Barbarikon, has not been located; it offered costus
(Kushtha, a fragrant root to be found in Kashmir), lykion (a medicinal wood
extract), nard (a fragrant medicinal herb), turquoise, lapis lazuli, indigo,
Chinese cloth, yarn and pelt.
Sailing east from Barbarikon, the
sailors came to some treacherous shallows where undercurrents could suck ships
into a shallow bay and run them aground. This was Eirinon, now known as the
Rann of Kutch. The way for sailors to avoid it was to recognize its vicinity
from the “snakes, huge and black, that emerge to meet them”. Those who survived
these treacherous waters sailed south down to Syrastrênê, the coastal region of
Aberia. Syrastrênê is obviously Saurashtra. Aberia is the land of the Abhirs.
Known today as the Ahirs, they were migrants from the northwest who were new
settlers in this area. “The region, very fertile, produces grain, rice, sesame
oil, ghee, cotton, and the Indian cloths made from it, those of ordinary
quality. There are a great many herds of cattle, and the men are of very great
size and dark skin colour.”
Rounding Syrastrênê, the
sailors came to Barygaza or Broach. The writer describes the difficulty of
getting to Broach: “All over India there are large numbers of rivers with
extreme ebb-and-flood tides that at the time of the new moon and the full moon
last for up to three days, diminishing during the intervals. They are much more
extreme in the area around Barygaza than elsewhere. Here suddenly the sea floor
becomes visible, and certain parts along the coast, which a short while ago had
ships sailing over them, at times become dry land, and the rivers, because of
the inrush at flood tide of a whole concentrated mass of seawater, are driven
headlong upstream against the natural direction of their flow for a good many
stades…The very mouth of the river on which Barygaza stands is hard to find
because the land is low and nothing is clearly visible even from nearby. And,
even if you find the mouth, it is hard to negotiate because of the shoals in
the river round it. For this reason local fishermen in the king’s service come
out with crews and long ships, the kind called trappage and kotymba,
to the entrance as far as Syrastrênê to meet vessels and guide them up to
Barygaza.” The entrance into Narmada continues to be as difficult as it was
2000 years ago; that is why, once the British developed Bombay, Broach lost its
position as a port.
Broach exported nard, costus,
bdellium, ivory, onyx, agate, lykion, cotton cloth, Chinese cloth [silk],
molochinon cloth, and long pepper. It was a good market for Italian, Laodician
and Arabian wine, copper, tin, lead, coral, peridot [topaz], printed cloth,
multicoloured eighteen-inch-wide girdles, yellow sweet clover, raw glass,
realgar [red arsenic sulphide, used as pigment and medicine], antimony sulphide
[a cosmetic and cure for sores], and Roman currency. Glass was imported because India did not make
any. Traders had to give presents to the king consisting of silverware, slave
musicians and beautiful girls for concubinage.
South of Barygaza was
Dachinabades [Dakshinapradesh] whose major cities were Paithana and Tagara; the
latter is identified as Ter in Maharashtra. The writer lists a string of ports
and landmarks down to Komar [Cape Comorin] – “men who wish to lead a holy life
for the rest of their days remain there celibate”. Beyond Komar was Kolchoi,
where convicts were made to dive for pearls, and then Ceylon. Its name had then
been changed from Taprobanê to Palaisimundu; apparently the name-changing game,
such a favourite of our paper patriots, was not unknown then. Its northern part
was “civilized”, and produced pearls, gems, cotton garments and tortoise shell.
Once he rounds Cape
Comorin, our sailor’s knowledge becomes sporadic. He mentions Ganges “the
greatest of all the rivers in India, which has a rise and fall like the Nile”.
He also mentions “a very great inland city called Thina [China].” But there
were also “numerous barbaric peoples, among whom are the Kirradai, a race of
wild men with flattened noses, and another people, the Bargysoi, and the Horse
Faces, who are said to be cannibals.” I will leave it to the readers to guess
who these people were.
