Indian Shipping/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 9

The period succeeding that of the Guptas and Harshavardhana was also equally characterized by remarkable outbursts of naval enterprise and colonizing activity, bringing about a further expansion of India. The field of maritime activity in the Eastern waters was considerably widened. For along with the intercourse of India with China there was developed in this period the intercourse with Japan in the farthest East. As regards the intercourse with China we have fresh facts to record. The Chu-fan-chih of Chao Jukua, a Chinese traveller of the 13th century, relates that during the periods Cheng-Kuan (a.d. 627-650) and T'ien-shou (a.d. 690-692) of the T'ang dynasty, the people of T'ien-chu (i.e. India) sent envoys with tribute to China.^[1] According to the Kwai-Yuen Catalogue, Punya-upachaya, who was a native of Central India, came to China from Ceylon in a.d. 655, while ​Jñana-bhadra, a Buddhist from Palyan of the "Southern Ocean," came to China for the second time after having visited India from China by sea. Some very interesting facts regarding the maritime intercourse between China and India are furnished by the famous Chinese traveller I-Tsing,^[2] who visited India in a.d. 673. He has recorded the itineraries of about sixty Chinese pilgrims who visited India in the 7th century a.d., from which it is clear that there was constant traffic across the sea between India and China. The whole coast of Farther India from Suvarṇabhūmi or Burma to China, and also of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, was studded with prosperous Indian colonies and naval stations, which ocean-liners regularly plying in the Eastern waters between India and China constantly used as convenient halting-places. I-Tsing refers to more than ten such colonies where Indian manners, customs, and religious practices prevailed together with Sanskrit learning. These were Śrī-Bhoja in Sumatra, Kalinga in Java, Mahasin in Borneo, and the islands of Bali, Bhojapara, etc., which had all Indian names, and afforded to Chinese pilgrims to India a good preparatory training. In these colonies or naval stations passengers often changed their ship, though many would come direct to ​Bengal, like I-Tsing, who disembarked at the port of Tamralipti, while others would halt at Ceylon, that sacred place of Buddhism, to re-ship themselves for Bengal, like Fa-Hien. I-Tsing has also recorded the names of some of his contemporaries who like him visited India by way of the sea. One was Tao-lin, the Master of the Law, who came to Tamralipti by way of Java and Nicobars. Another was Ta-tcheng-teng, who came by way of Ceylon and lived at the monastery named Varāha in Tamralipti.

Throughout this period we have also frequent notices in Chinese annals of Indian Buddhist devotees visiting China, as we have those of Chinese Buddhists visiting India with the permission of their emperor. Thus the Kwai-Yuen Catalogue, to which we have already referred, mentions the name of the Indian Vajrabodhi, who came to China by sea and entered the capital in a.d. 720. He was born in Malaya, a mountainous district in either Southern India or Ceylon, translated many Mantra texts, and became the founder of Mystical Buddhism in China. The son of an Indian king, Manju Srī by name, a very zealous Buddhist, came to China, but left the royal court through misunderstanding, and went off indignant to the southern coast to embark in a merchant vessel for India. At the time of Yung-hsi (a.d. 984-988) a Buddhist devotee, by name Lo-hu-na, ​arrived in China by sea; he called himself a native of T'ien-chu (India). In Col. Yule's Cathay and the Way Thither we have a record of the various instances of intercourse between China and India from the earliest times downwards, both by sea and land.

As regards the intercourse with Japan, which also developed during this period, we have a few conclusive facts and evidences to adduce. Japanese tradition records the names of Indian evangelists who visited Japan to propagate the Buddhistic faith. Thus Bodhidharma, of South India, after working in China, came to Japan and had an interview with Prince Shotoku (a.d. 573-621). Subkakara was another Indian, a native of Central India, who, while working in China (716-735), privately visited Japan and left at the Kumedera Temple, in the province of Yamato, a book of the Mahāvairochanabhisambodhi Sutra, consisting of seven books, the fundamental doctrines of Buddhistic Tantrism.^[3] The visit of the Indian missionary, Bodhisena, to Japan in a.d. 736 is a historical fact. Bodhisena had originally gone to China to see a Chinese sage, Manju Śrī, and while staying in a temple there came in contact with a Japanese envoy to the Celestial court, and was ​persuaded by the latter to visit Japan. He settled in Japan, and taught Sanskrit to Japanese priests. He was most bountifully provided by the Imperial Court, and most devotedly loved by the populace.

But India contributed not only to the religion of Japan but also to her industry. The official annals of Japan record how eleven centuries ago cotton was introduced into Japan by two Indians. The eighth volume of the Nihon-Ko-Ki records how in July, 799, a foreigner was washed ashore in a little boat somewhere on the southern coast of Mikwa Province in Japan. He confessed himself to be a man from "Ten-jiku," as India was then called in Japan. Among his effects was found something like grass-seeds, which proved to be no other than some seeds of the cotton-plant. Again, it is written in the 199th chapter of the Ruijukokushi (another official record) that a man from Kuen-lum was cast up on Japanese shores in April, 800, and that the cotton-seeds he had brought with him were sown in the provinces of Kii, Awaji, Sanuki, Jyo, Tosa, and Kyushu. These two records are enough to convince us that cotton was introduced into Japan through the Indians who were unfortunately carried over to that country by the "black current."^[4]

Towards the end of the 10th and the early part ​of the 11th century, Southern India witnessed a remarkable outburst of naval activity under the strong government of a succession of Chola kings. The first of this line of rulers was Rāja-rāja the Great, who ascended the throne in a.d. 985. He began his career of conquest by the destruction of the Chera fleet in the roads of Kandalur (probably on the west coast), and passed from victory to victory till, in the course of a busy reign of twenty-seven years, he made himself beyond dispute the Lord Paramount of Southern India, ruling a realm which included the whole of the Madras Presidency and a large part of Mysore, together with Kalingam, which he conquered in the sixteenth year of his reign. Ceylon (Ilam) also was added to his empire in the twentieth year, for he built up a powerful navy, and his operations were not confined merely to the land. Rāja-rāja Chola (a.d. 984-1013) was succeeded by his son Rājendra Choladeva I., under whose long and brilliant rule from a.d. 1013 to 1044 the power of the Cholas reached its high-water mark and their empire its widest extent. In inscriptions dated in the twelfth year of his reign (a.d. 1025) he is said to have conquered Orissa, Gujarat, Behar, and Bengal, and reached the banks of the Ganges, for which he assumed the title of Gangaikonda-chola (the Chola who seized the Ganges). In the inscriptions of his thirteenth year detailing his conquests we find ​that he also conquered "the whole kingdom of Ilam (Ceylon) in the raging ocean girt by the crystal waves of the sea," as well as "countless old islands (about 12,000 in number) in the midst of the ocean in which conches resound," which were probably the Laccadives and Maldives. In the same inscription it is also recorded that he achieved a great naval victory over "Saṅgrāma Vijayottunga Varman, the King of Kadaram, whom he caught by dispatching (his army in) many ships across the stormy sea and his huge elephants furious as the roaring sea." This "stormy sea" was no doubt the Bay of Bengal if Kadaram is identified with the ancient kingdom of Prome or Pegu, also known as Tharekhettra. The inscription also describes Kadaram as being "difficult to attack, being defended by the sea." All this, therefore, indicates that the naval power of the Cholas was considerably developed, making itself felt even on the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal. In addition to Kadaram there were also taken on the same coast the flourishing seaports of Takkolam (the Takola of Ptolemy, where, according to the Indian Antiquary, vol. xxi., p. 383, "cables, ropes, and other vestiges of sea-going vessels are still frequently dug up") and Matama or Martaban. Then followed the annexation of the whole of the kingdom, which was named Śrī Vishaya and Nakkavaram or the Nicobar and Andaman Islands. These exploits are ​thus referred to in the Tamil poem Kalinga Huparani: "The war-elephants of the Chola drank water of the Ganges at Mannai; and Kadaram, where the roaring crystal waves washed the sand mixed with red gold, was annexed" (canto viii., stanza 25).^[5]

The naval activity of the Chola emperors was not, however, confined within the limits of the Bay of Bengal. They appear to have carried on their intercourse with countries of the farther East as far as China. In the Sungshih, a Chinese work, the names of the two Chola kings are mentioned who sent embassies with tribute to China, viz.: in a.d. 1033, Shih-li-lo-ch'a-yin-to-lo-chu-lo, i.e. Śrī Rāja Indra Chola; and again in a.d. 1077, Ti-wa-ka-lo, which may stand for the Chola king Kulotunga (a.d. 1077-1118). The last embassy consisted of 72 men; it was probably, like most of the missions to the coast of China, nothing better than a trading expedition on joint account, the 72 ambassadors being the shareholders or their supercargoes.^[6]