1 Rajendra, the Gangaigonda Chola in the Sir Asutoah Commemoration Volumes: Vol. Ill, Calcutta University.

1 Translated by Dr. Hirth in J. R. A. S., 1896, p. 489. Republished in book form in 1912 by F. Hirth and W. W. R. rockhill. See also Gerini opus cit, p. 609, Note 2.

The Arab Muhammadans must have for some considerable time settled down along this coast for purposes of trade. We have already stated that there were small settlements of these even in a town like Kaveripatam. That state of things must have continued, and it was probably the passing of the bulk of the eastern trade under their control, and of the Coromandal coast proving the exchange mart between the goods from the west and goods from the east, that explains the Arab name Ma'bir (landing-place) which the Arabs gave to the South Indian coast extending from Quilon to Nellore according to Wassaf. It is just about this time of the rising of the Arab agencies on the Indian coast that were founded a number of settlements of these Arabs along the Ceylon coast as well. It is to this age that is again ascribed the gaining of sufficient influence by the Arabs on the north coast of Java, wherefrom by a few important conversions to Mahammadanism they began to exercise that influence that ultimately led to Java, and the islands adjoining, adopting the Mahammadan faith. It is this conversion to Mahammadanism of the East Indian Archipelago that is responsible for the cessation of the Hindu maritime enterprise in the east. It does not appear however to have ceased entirely. The famous charter to oversea traders granted by the Kakatiya king, Ganapati, and which is found recorded on the pillar at Motupalli near the mouth of the river Krishna, seems to have revived a little of the Hindu enterprise in this particular. The Telugu poet Srinatha in the dedication of his poem Harvilasam to one Avachi Tippaiya Setti of Nellore says, that Tippaiya Setti had the monopoly of supplying all valuable articles to the great Devaraya II of Vijay-nagar, to the Sultan Mahammad of the Bahmani kingdom and the Reddi chief, Kumaragiri Reddi of Kondavidu. He is said to have "imported camphor-plants from the Punjab, gold from Jalanogi, elephants from Ceylon, good horses from Hurimanji (Ormuz), musk from Goa, pearls from Apaga, Musk from Chotangi (Chautang or Drishadvati) and fine silks from China."

Whether we should take it that he got them all through the agency of the Mahammadan overseas merchants may be doubted. There is however the patent fact that, in the two and a half centuries of the ascendency of the Vijaya-nagar Empire in Southern India, something like 300 ports were open to trade along its coast. There is no reference to any effort on the part of this Empire to build up or maintain a navy. It is the want of a navy on the part of Vijaya-nagar and its failure to provide one that opened the way for the enterprise of foreigners, European foreigners, in this period in India.

This somewhat cursory survey of the maritme enterprise of the Hindus of South India makes it clear that the South Indian Hindus exhibited commendable enterprise oversea, and carried their civilisation and religion across the Bay of Bengal to the East Indian Archipelago in the centuries, perhaps anterior to the Christian era. With the dawn of the Christian era, this enterprise takes form and shape and we begin to see therefore communities of South Indian inhabitants along the eastern shores of the Bay of

Bengal. These communities began to grow and flourish to such an extent that they cease to be merely temporary trade settlements becoming permanent colonies of Hindus necessitating even a considerable amount of Brahman emigration essential to the life of the Hindu community as a whole. The whole turn that was given to the civilisation of the East Indian Archipelago is the form that religious and cultural development exhibited in South India. Vaishnavism and Saivism, or subsequently Southern or Hinayanist Buddhism spread over from South India and Ceylon to the east, and gave rise to those magnificent monuments, some of which even excel those of the mother country. The character of these monuments as far as they could be studied from their ruinous condition, and the few inscriptions that have been discovered indicate unmistakably that the inspiration came from South India. The culture was South Indian undoubtedly. The cause of prosperity of these might be regarded as clue to South India, as it is South Indian enterprise that built up the trade of the Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula with which it maintained a continuous trade in commodities of rare value, and gained from her the practical monopoly for several of them. In the development of a commerce from their exuberance of nature, South Indian Hindus played a prominent part. At one time it looked as though it had succeeded in establishing a Greater India; but the want of sustained enterprise in this particular, combined with efficient rivalries, stopped them short as soon as it was well on the way to its full development. This failure proved a vital defect in the imperial career of Vijayanagar, and made a permanent Hindu Empire in India impossible.