84 ELLIOT SMITH, Distribution of Mummification. 



trade was carried on from Indian ports by Dravidian 

 merchants as early as the seventh century B.C. The 

 beginnings of Dravidian navigation, however, were 

 probably much earlier than this. 



" We have seen that the sea-borne commerce of the 

 Solar or Naga tribes of Western India had become 

 important at a very early period. Of this the legend of 

 ' the churning of the ocean ' already referred to is an 

 allegorical description, but we have no detailed account 

 of ocean voyages until a much later period. Sakya 

 Buddha himself, however, refers to such voyages. He 

 says : ' Long ago ocean going merchants were wont to 

 plunge forth upon the sea, taking with them a shore- 

 sighting bird. When the ship was out of sight of land 

 they would set the shore-sighting bird free. And it would 

 go to the east and to the south and to the west and to 

 the north and to the intermediate points and rise aloft. 

 If on the horizon it caught sight of land, thither it would 

 go. But if not then it would come back to the ship 

 again' (Rhys Davids,/. R. A. 5., April, 1899, 432). 



" It will be observed that this mode of finding the 

 position of the ship at sea, which recalls the sending out 

 of the birds from the Ark, is said to have been the custom 

 4 long ago.' It would seem therefore, that in the fifth 

 century B.C. other and probably more scientific methods 

 were in use. It would also appear that the navigation of 

 the ocean was even then an ancient institution. 



" In the time of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Fah 

 Hian (about 406 A.D.) there was a regular and evidently 

 old-established trade between India and China and with 

 the islands of the Archipelago. 



" Fah Hian sailed from Tamalitti, or Tamralipti, at 

 the mouth of the Ganges, in a great merchant ship, and 

 in fourteen days reached Ceylon (Fo-Kwo-ki, Beal., 1, lxxi, 



