The inland cities of the Pirates are Olokhoira and Mousopallê the capital, both of which must be sought for in the rugged country about the sources of the Kṛishṇa and may provisionally be identified with the ancient towns of Karâḍ and Karvîr (Kolhápur) respectively. To complete Ptolemy’s account of this coast it is only necessary to mention the islands of Heptanêsia (Burnt Islands ?) Trikadiba and Peperinê. We are not here concerned with his account of the rest of India.

Bardesanês.Bardesanês met at Babylon certain envoys sent from India to the emperor Antoninus Pius (a.d. 154–181) and received from Damadamis and Sandanês, who were of their number, accounts of the customs of the Brâhmans and of a rock temple containing a statue of Śiva in the Ardhanârî form. Lassen (III. 62 and 348) connects Sandanês with the Sadinoi and places the temple in Western India, but neither of these conclusions is necessary. The object of the embassy is unknown.

Periplus.The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, formerly though wrongly attributed to Arrian (150 a.d.), is an account of the Egyptian trade with East Africa and India, written by a merchant of Alexandria for the use of his fellows. It is preserved in a single manuscript which in some places is very corrupt. The age of this work has been much disputed: the chief views as to this matter are,

Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Periplus. The only choice lies between the view of Müller and that of Reinaud. Müller argues for a date between a.d. 80 and a.d. 89, because the Periplus knows no more than Pliny of India beyond the Ganges, whereas Ptolemy’s knowledge is much greater: because the Periplus calls Ceylon Palaisimoundou, which is to Ptolemy (VII. iv. 1) an old name: because the Nabathæan kingdom, which was destroyed a.d. 105, was still in existence at the time of the Periplus: because the Periplus account of Hippalos shows it to be later than Pliny: and because the Periplus mentions king Zôskalês, who must be the Za Hakalê of the Abyssinian lists who reigned a.d. 77–89. It may be replied that the Periplus is not a geography of Eastern Asia, but a guide book for traders with certain ports only: that Ptolemy must have found in his lists three names for Ceylon, Taprobanê, Palaisimoundou, and Salikê, and that he has wrongly separated Palai from Simoundou, taking it to mean “formerly” and therefore entered Simoundou as the old and Salikê as the modern name,[2] whereas all three names were in use together: that the Nabathæan king Malikhas was simply the Sheikh of the tribe (Reinaud), and points to no definite date: that the Periplus’ account of Hippalos is certainly later than Pliny: and that the Zôskalês of the Periplus is the Za Sâgal or Za Asgal of the Abyssinian lists, who reigned a.d. 246–47 (Reinaud).

It follows that Reinaud’s date for the Periplus (a.d. 250) is the only one consistent with the facts and especially with the Indian facts. As will appear below, the growth of the Hippalos legend since Pliny’s time, the rival Parthians in Sindh, the mention of Mambaros and the supplanting of Ozênê by Minnagara as his capital since Ptolemy’s time, the independence of Baktria, and the notices of Saraganês and Sandanês, are all points strongly in favour of Reinaud’s date.

In the time of the Periplus the ships carrying on the Indian trade started from Myos Hormos (near Ras Abu Somer) or Berenikê (in Foul Bay) and sailed down the Red Sea to Mouza (Musa twenty-five miles north of Mokhâ), and thence to the watering place Okêlis (Ghalla) at the Straits. They then followed the Arabian coast as far as Kanê (Hisn Ghurâb in Hadramaut) passing on the way Eudaimôn Arabia (Aden) once a great mart for Indian traders, but lately destroyed by king Elisar (Müller’s conjecture for ΚΑΙΣΑΡ of the MS.) From Kanê the routes to India diverge, some ships sailing to the Indus and on to Barygaza, and others direct to the ports of Limyrikê (Malabár Coast). There was also another route to Limyrikê, starting from Arômata (Cape Guardafui). In all three voyages the ships made use of the monsoon, starting from Egypt in July. The monsoon was called Hippalos, according to the Periplus (chapter 57), after the navigator who first discovered the direct course across the sea, and it has been inferred from Pliny’s words (VI. 23) that this pilot lived in the middle of the first century a.d. But Pliny’s own account shows that, as we should expect, the progress from a coasting to a direct voyage was a gradual one, with several intermediate stages, in all of which the monsoon was more or less made use of. There was therefore no reason for naming the wind from the pilot who merely made the last step. Further though Pliny knows Hippalus as the local name of the monsoon wind in the eastern seas, he says nothing of its having been the name of the inventor of the direct course. The inference seems to be that Hippalos the pilot is the child of a seaman’s yarn arising out of the local name of
Appendix VI.
Early Greeks and Romans.
Periplus. the monsoon wind, and that his presence in the Periplus and not in Pliny shows that the former writer is much later than the latter.

The merchant bound for Skythia (Sindh) before he reaches land, which lies low to the northward, meets the white water from the river Sinthos (Indus) and water snakes (chapter 38). The river has seven mouths, small and marshy all but the middle one, on which is the port of Barbarikon (Shâhbandar, Haig, page 31) whence the merchants’ wares are carried up by river to the capital Minnagar (near Shâhdâdpur, Haig, page 32), which is ruled by Parthians who constantly expel one another (chapter 39). These contending Parthians must have been the remnant of the Karên Pahlavs who joined with the Kushâns to attack Ardeshir Pâpakân (Journ. As. [1866] VII. 134). The imports are clothing, flowered cottons, topazes, coral, storax, frankincense, glass vessels, silver plate, specie, and wine: and the exports costus (spice), bdellium (gum), yellow dye, spikenard, emeralds, sapphires, furs from Tibet, cottons, silk thread, and indigo. The list of imports shows that the people of Skythia were a civilised race and by no means wild nomads.

The Periplus next (chapter 40) gives an accurate account of the Ran (Eirinon) which in those days was probably below sea level (Haig, page 22, Burnes’ Travels into Bokhara, III. 309ff), and was already divided into the Great and the Little. Both were marshy shallows even out of sight of land and therefore dangerous to navigators. The Ran was then as now bounded to south and west by seven islands, and the headland Barakê (Dvârakâ) a place of special danger of whose neighbourhood ships were warned by meeting with great black water-snakes.