[5] Compare Note on Bhinmál page [467]. [↑]
[6] According to Cunningham (Ancient Geography, 43 and Beal’s Buddhist Records, I. 109 note 92) the site of Hastinagara or the eight cities is on the Swát river eighteen miles north of Pesháwar. In Vedic and early Mahábhárata times Hastinapura was the capital of Gandhára (Hewitt Jour. Roy. As. Soc. XXI. 217). In the seventh century it was called Pushkalávatí. (Beal’s Buddhist Records, I. 109.) Taxila, the capital of the country east of the Indus, was situated about forty miles east of Attok at Sháhderi near Kálaka-sarai (Cunningham’s Ancient Geography, 105). According to Cunningham (Ditto 109), Taxila continued a great city from the time of Alexander till the fifth century after Christ. It was then laid waste apparently by the great White Húṇa conqueror Mihirakula (a.d. 500–550). A hundred years later when Hiuen Tsiang visited it the country was under Kashmir, the royal family were extinct, and the nobles were struggling for power (Beal’s Buddhist Records, I. 136). Rumadesa. References to Rumadesa occur in the traditions of Siam and Cambodia as well as in those of Java. Fleets of Rúm are also noted in the traditions of Bengal and Orissa as attacking the coast (Fergusson’s Architecture, III. 640). Coupling the mention of Rúm with the tradition that the Cambodian temples were the work of Alexander the Great Colonel Yule (Ency. Brit. Article Cambodia) takes Rúm in its Musalmán sense of Greece or Asia Minor. The variety of references suggested to Fergusson (Architecture, III. 640) that these exploits are a vague memory of Roman commerce in the Bay of Bengal. But the Roman rule was that no fleet should pass east of Ceylon (Reinaud Jour. As. Ser. VI. Tom. I. page 322). This rule may occasionally have been departed from as in a.d. 166 when the emperor Marcus Aurelius sent an ambassador by sea to China. Still it seems unlikely that Roman commerce in the Bay of Bengal was ever active enough to gain a place as settler and coloniser in the traditions of Java and Cambodia. It was with the west not with the east of India that the relations of Rome were close and important. From the time of Mark Antony to the time of Justinian, that is from about b.c. 30 to a.d. 550, their political importance as allies against the Parthians and Sassanians and their commercial importance as controllers of one of the main trade routes between the east and the west made the friendship of the Kusháns or Śakas who held the Indus valley and Baktria a matter of the highest importance to Rome. How close was the friendship is shown in a.d. 60 by the Roman General Corbulo escorting the Hyrkanian ambassadors up the Indus and through the territories of the Kusháns or Indo-Skythians on their return from their embassy to Rome. (Compare Rawlinson’s Parthia, 271.) The close connection is shown by the accurate details of the Indus valley and Baktria recorded by Ptolemy (a.d. 166) and about a hundred years later (a.d. 247) by the author of the Periplus and by the special value of the gifts which the Periplus notices were set apart for the rulers of Sindh. One result of this long continued alliance was the gaining by the Kushán and other rulers of Pesháwar and the Panjáb of a knowledge of Roman coinage astronomy and architecture. Certain Afghán or Baktrian coins bear the word Roma apparently the name of some Afghán city. In spite of this there seems no reason to suppose that Rome attempted to overlord the north-west of India still less that any local ruler was permitted to make use of the great name of Rome. It seems possible that certain notices of the fleets of Rúm in the Bay of Bengal refer to the fleets of the Arab Al-Rami that is Lambri or north-west Sumatra apparently the Romania of the Chaldean breviary of the Malabár Coast. (Yule’s Cathay, I. lxxxix. note and Marco Polo, II. 243.) [↑]
[7] Compare Fergusson’s Architecture, III. 640; Yule in Ency. Brit. Cambodia. [↑]
[8] Java, I. 411. Compare Fergusson’s Architecture, III. 640. [↑]
[9] See Yule in Jour. Roy. As. Soc. (N. S.), I. 356; Fergusson’s Architecture, III. 631. [↑]
[10] Of the Java remains Mr. Fergusson writes (Architecture, III. 644–648): The style and character of the sculptures of the great temple of Boro Buddor are nearly identical with those of the later caves of Ajanta, on the Western Gháts, and in Sálsette. The resemblance in style is almost equally close with the buildings of Takht-i-Bahi in Gandhára (Ditto, 647). Again (page 637) he says: The Hindu immigrants into Java came from the west coast of India. They came from the valley of the Indus not from the valley of the Ganges. Once more, in describing No. XXVI. of the Ajanta caves Messrs. Fergusson and Burgess (Rock-cut Temples, 345 note 1) write: The execution of these figures is so nearly the same as in the Boro Buddor temple in Java that both must have been the work of the same artists during the latter half of the seventh century or somewhat later. The Buddhists were not in Java in the fifth century. They must have begun to go soon after since there is a considerable local element in the Boro Buddor. [↑]
[11] Traditions of expeditions by sea to Java remain in Márwár. In April 1895 a bard at Bhinmál related how Bhojrája of Ujjain in anger with his son Chandrabau drove him away. The son went to a Gujarát or Káthiáváḍa port obtained ships and sailed to Java. He took with him as his Bráhman the son of a Magh Pandit. A second tale tells how Vikram the redresser of evils in a dream saw a Javanese woman weeping, because by an enemy’s curse her son had been turned into stone. Vikram sailed to Java found the woman and removed the curse. According to a third legend Chandrawán the grandson of Vir Pramár saw a beautiful woman in a dream. He travelled everywhere in search of her. At last a Rishi told him the girl lived in Java. He started by sea and after many dangers and wonders found the dream-girl in Java. The people of Bhinmál are familiar with the Gujaráti proverb referred to below; Who goes to Java comes not back. MS. Notes, March 1895. [↑]
[12] Another version is:
Je jáe Jáve te phari na áve
Jo phari áve to parya parya kháve