COMMERCIAL RELATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST 17
go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass by” (Isaiah XXXIII 21) is not, as according to western notions it would be an expression of weakness and danger, but of prosperity and security.”
The trade between India and Judea does not date with Soloman : it enjoys considerable antiquity; mentions of Qphir are to be found long before the time of Soloman in the I Chronicles XXIX, 4, I kings XXII 48, and in Isaiah, XIII 12. These Biblical evidences may be supplemented by linguistic evidences such as the Hebrew word tuki which is but a little changed form of the poetical word Tokei i.e. the Tamilmalayalam language for peacock or the Hebrew word Ahalim or Aholoth — ‘aloes’—a corruption of the Tamil-malayalam word, Aghil. [1]
The rise of Babylonia marks the high water mark in the ancient commercial activity of India. Situated at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris joining the Persian Gulf with the mediterranean and being a meeting place of upper and lower Asia, Babylon was destined to be the great emporium of the eastern and western trade. It was the meeting place of routes from all parts of the ancient world. There is ample evidence, says Mr. Kennedy, that “warrants us in the belief that maritime commerce between India and Babylon flourished in the seventh and sixth and more especially in the sixth century B.C. It was chiefly in the hands of the Dravidians although Aryans also had a share in it, and as Indian traders settled afterwards in Arabia and on the eastern coast of Africa, and as we find them settling at this very time on the coast of China, we cannot doubt that they had their settlements in Babylon also. But the sixth and seventh centuries are the culminating period of Babylonian greatness. Babylon which had been destroyed by Senkacherib and rebuilt by Esarhaddon ; Babylon, which had fused her importance and her fame to the sanctity of her temples now appears before us of a sudden as the greatest commercial mart of the world. There was no limit to her power. She arose and utterly overthrew her ancient rival and oppressor Nineveh. With Nebuchadnezzar she became the
1 cf. E. J. Simcox — “Primitive Civilizations” Vol. I, p. 545.