51. Among the marts in this South Country there are two of more particular importance—Paithana, which lies south from Barugaza, a distance of twenty days, and Tagara, ten days east of Paithana, the greatest city in the country. Their commodities are carried down on wagons to Barugaza along roads of extreme difficulty,—that is, from Paithana a great quantity of onyx-stone, and from Tagara ordinary cottons in abundance, many sorts of muslins, mallow-coloured cottons, and other articles of local production brought into it from the parts along the coast. The length of the entire voyage as far as Limurikê is 700 stadia, and to reach Aigialos you must sail very many stadia further.
(51) In the interior of the Dekhan, the Periplûs places two great seats of commerce, Paithana, 20 days’ journey to the south of Barugaza, and Tagara, 10 days’ journey eastward from Paithana. Paithana, which appears in Ptolemy as Baithana, may be identified with Paithana. Tagara is more puzzling. Wilford, Vincent, Mannert, Ritter and others identify it with Dêvagiri or Deogarh, near Elurâ, about 8 miles from Aurangâbâd. The name of a place called Tagarapura occurs in a copper grant of land which was found in the island of Salsette. There is however nothing to show that this was a name of Dêvagiri. Besides, if Paithana be correctly identified, Tagara cannot be Dêvagiri unless the distances and directions are very erroneously given in the Periplûs. This is not improbable, and Tagara may therefore be Junnar (i.e. Jûna-nagar = the old city), which from its position must always have been an emporium, and its Buddha caves belong to about B.C. 100 to A.D. 150 (see Archæolog. Surv. of West. India, vol. III., and Elphinstone’s History of India, p. 223).
Our author introduces us next to another division of India, that called Limurikê, which begins, as he informs us, at a distance of 7,000 stadia (or nearly 900 miles) beyond Barugaza. This estimate is wide of the mark, being in fact about the distance between Barugaza and the southern or remote extremity of Limurikê. In the Indian segment of the Roman maps called from their discoverer, the Peutinger Tables, the portion of India to which this name is applied is called Damirike. We can scarcely err, says Dr. Caldwell (Dravid. Gram. Intr. page 14), in identifying this name with the Tami[l:] country. If so, the earliest appearance of the name Tami[l:] in any foreign documents will be found also to be most perfectly in accordance with the native Tami[l:] mode of spelling the name. Damirike evidently means Damirike.... In another place in the same map a district is called Scytia Dymirice; and it appears to have been this word which by a mistake of Δ for Λ Ptolemy wrote Λυμιρικὴ. The D retains its place however in the Cosmography of the anonymous geographer of Ravenna, who repeatedly mentions Dimirica as one of the three divisions of India and the one furthest to the East. He shows also that the Tami[l:] country must have been meant by the name by mentioning Modura as one of the cities it contained.
52. The local marts which occur in order along the coast after Barugaza are Akabarou, Souppara, Kalliena, a city which was raised to the rank of a regular mart in the times of the elder Saraganes, but after Sandanes became its master its trade was put under the severest restrictions; for if Greek vessels, even by accident, enter its ports, a guard is put on board and they are taken to Barugaza.
(52) Reverting to Barugaza our author next enumerates the less important emporia having merely a local trade which intervenes between it and Dimurikê. Those are first Akabarou, Souppara, and Kalliena—followed by Semulla, Mandagora, Palaipatmai, Meligeizara, Buzantion, Toperon, and Turanosboas,—beyond which occurs a succession of islands, some of which give shelter to pirates, and of which the last is called Leukê or White Island. The actual distance from Barugaza to Naoura, the first port of Dimurikê, is 4,500 stadia.
To take these emporia in detail. Akabarou cannot be identified. The reading is probably corrupt. Between the mouths of the Namados and those of the Goaris, Ptolemy interposes Nousaripa, Poulipoula, Ariakê Sadinôn, and Soupara. Nausaripa is Nausari, about 18 miles to the south of Surat, and Soupara is Sûpârâ near Vasâï. Benfey, who takes it to be the name of a region and not of a city, regards it as the Ophir of the Bible—called in the Septuagint Σωφηρά. Sôphir, it may be added, is the Coptic name for India. Kalliena is now Kalyâna near Bombay [which must have been an important place at an early date. It is named in the Kaṇhêri Bauddha Cave Inscriptions]. It is mentioned by Kosmas (p. 337), who states that it produced copper and sesamum and other kinds of logs, and cloth for wearing apparel. The name Sandanes, that of the Prince who sent Greek ships which happened to put into its port under guard to Barugaza, is thought by Benfey to be a territorial title which indicated that he ruled over Ariakê of the Sandineis. [But the older “Saraganes” probably indicates one of the great Śâtakarṇi or Ândhrabhṛitya dynasty.] Ptolemy does not mention Kalliena, though he supplies the name of a place omitted in the Periplûs, namely Dounga (VII. i. 6) near the mouth of the river Bênda.
53. After Kalliena other local marts occur—Semulla, Mandagora, Palaipatmai, Melizeigara, Buzantion, Toparon, and Turannosboas. You come next to the islands called Sêsekreienai and the island of the Aigidioi and that of the Kaineitai, near what is called the Khersonêsos, places in which are pirates, and after this the island Leukê (or ‘the White’). Then follow Naoura and Tundis, the first marts of Limurikê, and after these Mouziris and Nelkunda, the seats of Government.
(53) Semulla (in Ptolemy Timoula and Simulla) is identified by Yule with Chênval or Chaul, a seaport 23 miles south of Bombay; [but Bhagvanlâl Indraji suggests Chimûla in Trombay island at the head of the Bombay harbour; and this is curiously supported by one of the Kanhêri inscriptions in which Chemûla is mentioned, apparently as a large city, like Supârâ and Kalyâna, in the neighbourhood]. After Simulla Ptolemy mentions Hippokoura [possibly, as suggested by the same, a partial translation of Ghoḍabandar on the Choḍa nadi in the Ṭhaṅa strait] and Baltipatna as places still in Ariakê, but Mandagara Buzanteion, Khersonêsos, Armagara, the mouths of the river Nanagouna, and an emporium called Nitra, as belonging to the Pirate Coast which extended to Dimurikê, of which Tundis, he says, is the first city. Ptolemy therefore agrees with our author in assigning the Pirate Coast to the tract of country between Bombay and Goa. This coast continued to be infested with pirates till so late a period as the year 1765, when they were finally exterminated by the British arms. Mandagara and Palaipatma may have corresponded pretty nearly in situation with the towns of Rájapur and Bankut. Yule places them respectively at Bankut and Debal. Melizeigara (Milizêguris or Milizigêris of Ptolemy, VII. i. 95), Vincent identifies with Jaygaḍh or Sidê Jaygaḍh. The same place appears in Pliny as Sigerus (VI. xxvi. 100). Buzantium may be referred to about Vijayadrug or Esvantgadh, Toparon may be a corrupt reading for Togaron, and may perhaps therefore be Devagaḍh which lies a little beyond Vijayndrug. Turannosboas is not mentioned elsewhere, but it may have been, us Yule suggests, the Bandâ or Tirakal river. Müller placed it at Acharê. The first island on this part of the coast is Sindhudrug near Mâlwan, to which succeeds a group called the Burnt Islands, among which the Vingorla rocks are conspicuous. These are no doubt the Heptanêsia of Ptolemy (VII. i. 95), and probably the Sêsikrienai of the Periplûs. The island Aigidion called that of the Aigidii may be placed at Goa, [but Yule suggests Angediva south of Sadaśivagaḍh, in lat. 14° 45´ N., which is better]. Kaineiton may be the island of St. George.
We come next to Naoura in Dimurikê. This is now Honâvar, written otherwise Onore, situated on the estuary of a broad river, the Śarâvatî, on which are the falls of Gêrsappa, one of the most magnificent and stupendous cataracts in the world. If the Nitra of Ptolemy (VII. i. 7) and the Nitria of Pliny be the same as Naoura, then these authors extend the pirate coast a little further south than the Periplûs does. But if they do not, and therefore agree in their views as to where Dimurikê begins, the Nitra may be placed, Müller thinks, at Mirjan or Komta, which is not far north from Honâvar. [Yule places it at Mangalur.] Müller regards the first supposition however as the more probable, and quotes at length a passage from Pliny (VI. xxvi. 104) referring thereto, which must have been excerpted from some Periplûs like our author’s, but not from it as some have thought. “To those bound for India it is most convenient to depart from Okêlis. They sail thence with the wind Hipalus in 40 days to the first emporium of India, Muziris, which is not a desirable place to arrive at on account of pirates infesting the neighbourhood, who hold a place called Nitrias, while it is not well supplied with merchandize. Besides, the station for ships is at a great distance from the shore, and cargoes have both to be landed and to be shipped by means of little boats. There reigned there when I wrote this Caelobothras. Another port belonging to the nation is more convenient, Neacyndon, which is called Becare (sic. codd., Barace, Harduin and Sillig). There reigned Pandiôn in an inland town far distant from the emporium called Modura. The region, however, from which they convey pepper to Becare in boats formed from single logs is Cottonara.”
54. To the kingdom under the sway of Kêprobotres[22] Tundis is subject, a village of great note situate near the sea. Mouziris, which pertains to the same realm, is a city at the height of prosperity, frequented as it is by ships from Ariakê and Greek ships from Egypt. It lies near a river at a distance from Tundis of 500 stadia, whether this is measured from river to river or by the length of the sea voyage, and it is 20 stadia distant from the mouth of its own river. The distance of Nelkunda from Mouziris also nearly 500 stadia, whether measured from river to river or by the sea voyage, but it belongs to a different kingdom, that of Pandiôn. It likewise is situate near a river and at about a distance from the sea of 120 stadia.
(54) With regard to the names in this extract which occur also in the Periplûs the following passages quoted from Dr. Caldwell’s Dravidian Grammar will throw much light. He says (Introd. p. 97):—“Muziris appears to be the Muyiri of Muyiri-kotta. Tyndis is Tuṇḍi, and the Kynda, of Nelkynda, or as Ptolemy has it, Melkynda, i. e. probably Western kingdom, seems to be Kannettri, the southern boundary of Kêrala proper. One MS. of Pliny writes the second part of this word not Cyndon but Canidon. The first of these places was identified by Dr. Gundert, for the remaining two we are indebted to Dr. Burnell.
“Cottonara, Pliny; Kottonarike, Periplûs, the district where the best pepper was produced. It is singular that this district was not mentioned by Ptolemy. Cottonara was evidently the name of the district. κοττοναρικον the name of the pepper for which the district was famous. Dr. Buchanan identifies Cottonara with Kaḍatta-naḍu, the name of a district in the Calicut country celebrated for its pepper. Dr. Burnell identifies it with Koļatta-nâḍu, the district about Tellicherry which he says is the pepper district. Kadatta in Malayâlam means ‘transport, conveyance,’ Nâdû, Tam.—Mal., means a district.”
“The prince called Kêrobothros by Ptolemy (VII. i. 86) is called Kêprobotros by the author of the Periplûs. The insertion of π is clearly an error, but more likely to be the error of a copyist than that of the author, who himself had visited the territories of the prince in question. He is called Caelobothras in Pliny’s text, but one of the MSS. gives it more correctly as Celobotras. The name in Sanskrit, and in full is ‘Keralaputra,’ but both kêra and kêla are Dravidian abbreviations of kêralâ. They are Malayâļam however, not Tamil abbreviations, and the district over which Keralaputra ruled is that in which the Malayâļam language is now spoken” (p. 95). From Ptolemy we learn that the capital of this prince was Karoura, which has been “identified with Karûr, an important town in the Koimbatur district originally included in the Chêra kingdom. Karûr means the black town.... Ptolemy’s word Karoura represents the Tami[l:] name of the place with perfect accuracy.” Nelkunda, our author informs us, was not subject to this prince but to another called Pandiôn. This name, says Dr. Caldwell, “is of Sanskrit origin, and Pandæ, the form which Pliny, after Megasthenês, gives in his list of the Indian nations, comes very near the Sanskrit. The more recent local information of Pliny himself, as well as the notices of Ptolemy and the Periplûs, supply us with the Dravidian form of the word. The Tami[l:] sign of the masc. sing. is an, and Tami[l:] inserts i euphonically after ṇḍ, consequently Pandiôn, and still better the plural form of the word Pandiones, faithfully represents the Tami[l:] masc. sing. Pâṇḍiyan.” In another passage the same scholar says: “The Sanskrit Pâṇḍya is written in Tamil Pâṇḍiya, but the more completely tamilized form Pâṇḍi is still more commonly used all over southern India. I derive Pâṇḍi, as native scholars always derive the word, from the Sanskrit Pâṇḍu, the name of the father of the Pâṇḍava brothers.” The capital of this prince, as Pliny has stated, was Modura, which is the Sanskrit Maṭhurâ pronounced in the Tami[l:] manner. The corresponding city in Northern India, Maṭhurâ, is written by the Greeks Methora.
Nelkunda is mentioned by various authors under varying forms of the name. As has been already stated, it is Melkunda in Ptolemy, who places it in the country of the Aii. In the Peutingerian Table it is Nincylda, and in the Geographer of Ravenna, Nilcinna. At the mouth of the river on which it stands was its shipping port Bakare or Becare, according to Müller now represented by Markari (lat. 12° N.) Yule conjectures that it must have been between Kanetti and Kolum in Travancore. Regarding the trade of this place we may quote a remark from Vincent. “We find,” he says, “that throughout the whole which the Periplûs mentions of India we have a catalogue of the exports and imports only at the two ports of Barugaza and Nelcynda, and there seems to be a distinction fixed between the articles appropriate to each. Fine muslins and ordinary cottons are the principal commodities of the first; tortoise shell, precious stones, silk, and above all pepper, seem to have been procurable only at the latter. This pepper is said to be brought to this port from Cottonara, famous to this hour for producing the best pepper in the world except that of Sumatra. The pre-eminence of these two ports will account for the little that is said of the others by the author, and why he has left us so few characters by which we may distinguish one from another.”
Our author on concluding his account of Nelkunda interrupts his narrative to relate the incidents of the important discovery of the monsoon made by that Columbus of antiquity Hippalus. This account, Vincent remarks, naturally excites a curiosity in the mind to enquire how it should happen that the monsoon should have been noticed by Nearkhos, and that from the time of his voyage for 300 years no one should have attempted a direct course till Hippalus ventured to commit himself to the ocean. He is of opinion that there was a direct passage by the monsoons both in going to and coming from India in use among the Arabians before the Greeks adopted it, and that Hippalus frequenting these seas as a pilot or merchant, had met with Indian or Arabian traders who made their voyages in a more compendious manner than the Greeks, and that he collected information from them which he had both the prudence and courage to adopt, just as Columbus, while owing much to his own nautical experience and fortitude was still under obligations to the Portuguese, who had been resolving the great problems in the art of navigation for almost a century previous to his expedition.
55. At the very mouth of this river lies another village, Bakare, to which the ships despatched from Nelkunda come down empty and ride at anchor off shore while taking in cargo: for the river, it may be noted, has sunken reefs and shallows which make its navigation difficult. The sign by which those who come hither by sea know they are nearing land is their meeting with snakes, which are here of a black colour, not so long as those already mentioned, like serpents about the head, and with eyes the colour of blood.
(55) Nelkunda appears to have been the limit of our author’s voyage along the coast of India, for in the sequel of his narrative he defines but vaguely the situation of the places which he notices, while his details are scanty, and sometimes grossly inaccurate. Thus he makes the Malabar Coast extend southwards beyond Cape Comorin as far at least as Kolkhoi (near Tutikorin) on the Coromandel coast, and like many ancient writers, represents Ceylon as stretching westward almost as far as Africa.