COMMERCE OF INDIA. 



189 



It is my intention to give you only a few rude outlines of 

 Indian commerce in general ; the subject is too large, too 

 intricate, and too difficult to be dealt with, to allow here of a 

 detailed and circumstantial description. Besides this, the 

 material for a complete survey of the commercial relations 

 of India has not yet been gathered, and I am afraid, will 

 never be satisfactorily collected, not only because much of 

 the past is irretrievably lost and will remain for ever wrapped 

 in darkness, but, also because the Hindus, though well aware 

 of the profitable nature of commerce, have not committed, 

 and as a rule do not commit, the history of their commercial 

 pursuits to posterity. Except a few occasional allusions, 

 here and there, in different works, Indian literature keeps 

 silence on this subject, and were it not for the writings of 

 foreigners, or for the remains of olden times, which have sur- 

 vived and been preserved, our knowledge would be more 

 limited still. Eminent scholars have done much to throw 

 light on this important, but very obscure matter, and my 

 revered teacher, the greatest Indian Archaeologist of our 

 day, the late Professor Lassen, of Bonn, has striven hard to 

 ■explain many prominent occult points. 



Before beginning to discourse on the commerce of India, 

 I must draw your attention to the fact that, long before the 

 Aryans came to India, that great race which is generally 

 described as and known under the name of Turanian, had 

 founded empires throughout the old world. The home of the 

 Turanians is assumed to have been the country round Lake 

 Aral. Thence they spread over' the greatest part of Asia, 

 reigning there paramount for at least 1500 years. 



It is established now, beyond any doubt, through the 

 decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, that the Turanian 

 empires had advanced to a high degree of culture. This 

 civilization, though tainted with strange materialism, proved 

 itself nevertheless able to develop to a high degree of perfec- 

 tion certain branches of art and of science. To these Turanians 



