12 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



First In the ' Periplus of the Erythraean Sea ' (63 A.D.) we have the first 



account of commercial mention of Indian cotton. The raw fibre, as also the 



Indian Indian cotton manufactures, were, we learn, conveyed by the Arabs 



trade. irom ' Patiala, Ariake and Barygaza ' (the modern Broach) up the 



Bed Sea to ' Aduli.' Masulia (the modern Masulipatam) was even 



then famous for its painted calicos, and the fine cotton cloths (muslins) 



called by the Greeks gangitiki came very possibly from Dacca. 



The ' Indika ' of Arrian, a work compiled (150 A.D.) from Nearchus, 

 Megasthenes, Strabo and Eratosthenes, as also other early Greek 

 travellers, was professedly intended to supersede the inaccurate 

 account of India given by Ktesias of Knidos. After narrating the 

 particulars above mentioned, Arrian adds that the cotton of India is 

 whiter and brighter than that of any other country. Thus by the 

 beginning of the Christian Era we have a fairly vivid glimpse of 

 India as a cotton-growing and cotton-manufacturing country. 

 Confusion The simple reference to a fibre or textile under such names as 

 ie8 ' kdrpdsi, qutn, linon, carbasa, xylon or gossypion, may, however, 

 be of no historic value. It has to be shown that the word used 

 had the same signification as to-day. And in the case of cotton, 

 a description of wool obtained from pods would not in itself be 

 conclusive of Gossypium, since it would be equally applicable to 

 Bombax, Eriodendron, Calotropis, &c. Moreover, there would seem 

 no doubt that certain ancient words that denoted ' woolly ' or ' silky ' 

 and the like were each adopted by comparatively recent writers for 

 certain fibres, in order to distinguish the chief textiles as they came 

 Coining of into use. Writers of a still later date traced out the antiquity of 

 these words and claimed that antiquity for the fibres that now bear 

 the names (or synonyms) in question. Many illustrations might in 

 fact be given of the confusion that prevailed regarding the separate 

 recognition of the chief textiles of the world down even to the 

 seventeenth century. At Manchester, for example, a particular 

 texture of goods, woven of wool, was in 1590 sold under the name of 

 1 Manchester Cottons/ the name being intended to denote quality, 

 not material. In 1664 the dispute between Sir Martin Noel and the 

 East India Company as to whether ' calico was linen or no ' became 

 acute, and that controversy shows how very reluctantly the name 

 ' cotton ' was, in England even, accepted as indicative of a distinct 

 fibre. 



Arab There is, however, every reason for believing that the Arabs 



5r8> knew of cotton and wore cotton garments before the present era. 



