Ancient South Indian Commerce

BY SRIMATI V. T. LAKSHMI ¹

As regards South Indian trade with Japan in the early days, we have a few conclusive proofs to adduce. From the days of Asoka, Buddhist missionaries were going to Japan to propagate their faith there. Thus, religion connected South India and Japan, and paved the way for their future commercial relations. The Official Annals record how Indian cotton was introduced into Japan, years ago. Says Mookerji: "India" (we may say South India) "contributed not only to her (Japan’s) religion, but also to her industry." Towards the end of the tenth century A.D., South India, under the Cholas, witnessed a remarkable outburst of naval activity. The last Chola embassy of 1077 A.D. consisted of seventy-two men: it was nothing better than a trading expedition on joint account, the seventy-two men being the share-holders. Japanese trade with South India continues right down to this day.

When South India was carrying on an extensive trade with China, she incidentally came across Malaya, which served as the ‘entrepot’ of her trade with China. Probably, the betel-leaf was an article imported to South India from Malaya. Although it is widely used by the Tamils, there is no proper name in Tamil for that article. "Vetrilai" means mere leaf: that is, the leaf which can be eaten as it is! The early mention of it was made in "Silappadigaram" where Kannagi offered betel-leaves to her husband. In exchange, South India must have sent her famous native commercial goods to Malaya, although there is no definite evidence to support this statement.

Last but not least, we must deal with South Indian commercial connections with Rome, which are amply supported by numismatic and literary evidences. Pliny mentions the vast quantities of spices that found their way to Rome from South India. Embassies were sent from South India to Rome. Roman coins were found in profusion in the peninsular South. In 68 A.D., a number of Jews fled from Roman persecution and settled down in Malabar, in South India. It is to be noted that South Indian intercourse with Rome was both commercial and political by nature. In very early times, the Romans retained their original simplicity, and did not, therefore, hanker after luxuries. So, South Indian goods, for which there had been a great demand in Asia and elsewhere in Europe, did not reach Rome in the early Consular times. But, ere long, "successive conquests and spoliations of all the Mediterranean peoples had brought Rome treasures as yet unexampled, as a taste for the precious things of the East was developed overnight." (Schoff’s Periplus). Says Warmington: "The old frugal austerity had long given way before the attractions of luxury, and wastes of the Far East were reaching Rome in some quantity at the end of the second century before Christ." In the days of the Empire, Augustus, after his Egyptian conquest, developed sea-trade between South India and Rome. Strabo saw a number of ships, not less than 120 ships, sailing from Hormus to South India. Political embassies from the Tamil States under "Sera, Pandya and Sola monarchs" of the time went separately to Rome and this incidentally led to the huge expansion of South Indian trade with Rome. The Roman Empire could not counter-balance the inflow of Indian products by a return of Roman products. The result was that Roman money was sent to South India as the price of South Indian imports; and these coins never returned. Rome was on the verge of bankruptcy and ruin. She practised, for some time, fraud in the exportation of money to South India, but she could not carry on the game for long. Several were the products of South India, that were exported to Rome during this epoch: among the exports of living animals and birds, mention must be made of tigers, elephants, buffaloes, rhinoceroses, hounds, parrots, peacocks and serpents. We hear of Augustus having shown tigers in cages, a one-horned rhinoceros having been exhibited by Sulla and Pompey, elephants having been used in the second Punic War and in drawing the Emperor’s royal chariots, hunting dogs having been reared under chains by the Roman nobles, and parrots and peacocks having been the pets of the Roman ladies! Strabo saw an Indian serpent, nine feet in length, in Egypt. Some of the important animal products which South India exported to Rome were ivory and pearls. Cleopatra drank wine, containing the solution of dissolved pearls! Cicero saw a number of ladies wearing pearl jewels. Lac-dyed cotton of South India was sent to Rome, where it was used and appreciated by the Roman ladies. Says Pliny: "While they (cotton clothes) cover a woman, they, at the same time, reveal her naked charms." Ivory was used for both necessary and luxurious articles in Rome.

A word must be said about the vegetable products of South India that went to Rome during this period. Pepper and spices, gingelly oil and cocoanuts, timber and ebony and various precious stones found their way to Rome in abundance. In spite of all this, South Indian trade with Rome did not assume any great proportions during the early days of the Empire. It was in the latter days of the Roman Empire that this trade flourished. In addition to the products already mentioned, Rome also got rose-wood, sandal-wood, cotton, iron and steel from South India during this period. It is a common story how Philon, the Jewish philosopher, lamented the fact of Roman ladies parading pearls, and how the Roman nobles used cups hollowed out of precious stones for drinking wine. For instance, Emperor Nero paid a million sesterces for a cup of emerald! In exchange for these articles of South India, Rome sent her chiefly coins, but also coral, wine, lead and tin. But, as it has been already noted, South Indian trade adversely affected the Roman coinage and, in a way, paved the way for the split and disruption of the Roman Empire.

Roman arts and ideas also traveled with the stream of Roman gold which flowed into the treasuries of Tamil Rajas as payment for the spices, gems, etc., of South Indian export to Rome. When the Roman Empire was overrun by the barbarians, the Roman commercial agents took refuge and later settled down in South Indian capitals and markets. Says Smith: "There is good reason to believe that considerable colonies of Roman subjects of all shades of interests settled in Southern India, and that Roman soldiers, described as ‘powerful Yavanas’ and ‘dumb mlechhas’ clad in complete armour, acted as bodyguards to Tamil kings." Tamil literature alludes to the facts that Roman soldiers were enlisted in the services of the Pandyan and other kings, and that they were employed to guard the gates of the fort of Mathura. Tamil capitals were full of Yavana statues (‘Yavana Pavai’) and Yavana ornaments (‘Yavana Manjigai’); and Roman artisans and engineers, who settled down in South India, did yeoman service to the country by introducing into the same several types of their architecture, and battering-rams and other machines of engineering skill. There is evidence to show South Indian embassies having been sent to Rome in the days of Augustus, Trojan, and Julian. Thus, there is authentic evidence, beyond doubt, to prove the establishment of a Roman colony in South India, as well as close connection between South India and Rome, not only in commerce but also in political affairs, in ancient times.

The Indian colonisation of Java and the presence of the Indian Cult in Armenia in the early days lead us to the conclusion that there must have been commercial connection between South India on the one hand and Java and Armenia on the other, dealing in the famous native products of South India. For no country, Asiatic or European, failed to realise the value of South Indian pepper or the beauty of her ivory and teak!

We have made a cursory study of South Indian trade, chiefly maritime, from the earliest times down to the first half of the millennium following the birth of Christ. We have, as far as we could, sketched the development of her trade with various countries and Empires, beginning with Sumeria and ending with Rome. During this short review one special fact comes out prominent: that it was the decree of the Unknown that civilisation should not be monopolised by anyone country either in Asia or in Europe. From the Sumerian the torch of world-civilisation was passed on to Babylonia; from Babylonia to Egypt; from Egypt to Palestine; from Palestine to China; from China to Arabia and Assyria; from Assyria to Persia;

and from Persia to Greece and Rome; and incidentally to Malaya. Java and Armenia were also benefited by the world-civilisation. But, throughout, South India steadily kept up the torch of her civilisation in an ever-bright flame. She had not known any vicissitudes of fortune nor did she suffer from any adverse catastrophe. She preserved and cherished her glorious prestige and honour, and did not let slip her world-renowned commercial privilege. She adjusted her trade relations with several countries according to the conditions of the times. With Babylon and China she traded on the system of barter, while in the case of Rome, she received the payment of her products in coins. She was straight in her dealings both with the Arabian and Greek intermediaries as well as with other commercial countries. Her goods were uniformly praised and incessantly demanded by every advanced country, in the early periods. Though her exports were not many, they were choice, and fetched her both wealth and renown. Her pepper, gingelly oil, sandal-wood, ivory and spices and precious stones and, above all, her fine cotton, not to speak of several animals and birds, were to be found in the lists of imports of every ancient country! We must remember that South Indian international trade not only benefited South India, but also other countries of the day, with which she came into contact.

It will not be far from the truth if we assert that it was South India which contributed much to India’s international glory in the early times. Just as the North spread far and wide Indian culture and religion, it was given only to the South to make the country commercially great and internationally greater. It was the South that built up a greater India, and secured her undying fame, and gave India a status in the galaxy of the great ancient countries of the world. Gifted as she is with natural advantages, she availed herself of them, and long before the North ever thought of oars and overseas, she became an adept in sea-trade! But for South Indian trade with other countries and Empires, in the pre-historic ages, India would have been a neglected country, groping in the dark. It was her Southern trade not less than her Northern culture that immortalised her name through the ages. "This gives the lie direct to several statements that Smith has made in his books against South India." Thus, we will not be justified, at least hereafter, to give the Deccan and the Far South a secondary place of importance in the history of India. Perhaps the political or religious history of South India may not be as interesting as that of North India. But, the South has a very interesting commercial history to present to us. She has an interesting tale to narrate as to how she grew, step by step, in the scale of world-civilisation, by means of her wide and expansive trade with the rest of the known world. In these gloomy days of economic depression in India, it is her ancient commercial history that will animate her and inspire her to do her best to revive her ancient industrial wealth and glory and compete successfully with the modern industrial world. So long North India, with her religion and philosophy, guided India as the cultural mistress of the rest of the world. Let South India from now, with her commercial experience and ancient glory, make herself the leader of the world in the field of commerce and trade, and revive her ancient prestige.

Such is the glorious picture of ancient South Indian inter commercial relations with the rest of the then-known eastern and western countries. There had been a prevailing belief from early times, which ran continuously through the most ancient historical and quasi-historical writings of both the Hindu and Buddhist writers, as well as through the accounts of foreign travellers and various inscriptions, in other countries, that the rich oriental merchandise of the days of King Hiram and King Solomon had its starting place in the sea-ports of the Deccan, and that, with a very high degree of probability, some of the most esteemed of the spices, which were carried into Egypt by the Midianites merchantmen of Genesis, XXXVII, 25 and 28, and by the sons of the patriarch Jacob, had been cultivated in the spice gardens of the Deccan. If this conclusion were to surprise anybody, it was nevertheless in perfect accordance with the fact, now scarcely to be doubted, that the Deccan was the seat of well-ordered monarchical government, as far as, and therefore even some time prior to, the time of Raghu, the great-grandfather of Sri Rama, and that it was the centre of a splendid culture and had all the marks of civilised progress. As truly as she is still the mistress of the world in spirituality, it was given to South India, throughout the ages, to occupy a significant place of parity and equality with the rest of the great commercial and progressive countries of the world. The most interesting characteristic of ancient South India was the evolution and flourishing of an international commercial organism for the preservation, enrichment and glorification of the country, adapting it to existing conditions, although owing to various circumstances it failed to transmit it to posterity. South India took full advantage of every commercial phenomenon as it presented itself, and transmitted it into an energetic agency for stimulating in her children a striving towards whatever was noble, great and good in the world of maritime commerce. For, in the ancient days, there was no arrant selfishness or deceit. There was no smuggling or dumping. There was no complex system of tariffs. And there was no League of Nations or World Council of International Commerce to supervise the inter-trade relations among several countries or International Companies to draft, alter and adjust rules and regulations to govern the procedure of international commerce or to hold out "economic boycotts" to aggressive countries. The present dubious principle of Imperial Preference or quite questionable conceptions of "Mother and daughter countries" were conspicuous by their absence. The whole of the commercial mechanism in the ancient times was based upon simplicity, honesty and mutual trust and good-will. There was a common and sane understanding that every country should profit herself, to her utmost, by honest means, not at the cost of, but only with the willing co-operation and good-will of, the other countries. It might be also contended that the commercial soul of India was in evidence through the ages, overcoming and assimilating or adorning and adapting to her conditions every foreign influence with which she came into contact. In the words of a great South Indian historian, it was only too true that in the remote past as in the recent present "South India did not plough a lonely furrow, during the ages, but acted as the perpetual spring whence the living waters of science, art, religion" and, may we add, commerce, "had been steadily flowing" not only to benefit herself, but also to profit the rest of the progressive countries of the world.

1 Continued from the October number.