Question

write a note on ancient Indian towns that lay on important trade routes

Answer 1

The anonymous author of Periplus Maris Erythraei (The Navigation of the Erythraean Sea aka Indian Ocean) is a 1st century AD, Greek-speaking Egyptian sea trader. In order to grasp more fully what an ancient writer has to say to us, we must imagine this Anonymous, perhaps bearded and middle-aged, in a casual white toga sitting at his wooden desk with his bronze stylus pen writing down carefully on papyrus his extensive knowledge of his ship Argos’ many trips out of Egypt, down the Red Sea across the Persian/Arabian Gulf into the Indian Ocean and landing finally in northern India. See him trading/bartering/selling his goods to the Indian businessmen there in the crowded ports and buying their Eastern goods to bring back to the Western world.
Imagine him in his ship counting his profit in, say, the port of Barygaza (in India near modern Karachi); and see him homeward bound after 8-10 months away from his family and his favorite chicken with plum sauce; and the joy he felt when he was finally stretched out in his own bed with the soft linen sheets. One imagines him the captain/owner of the ship from his many warnings about ocean dangers and his intricate directions on how to navigate into all foreign ports. One imagines he no longer takes those trips. As he writes, his mind and emotions are in India with all its fragrance.

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whatever I know about it is written...

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