Consider the following statements : 1. Periplus is a Greek word meaning sailing around. 2. Erythraean was the Greek name for the Mediterranean Sea. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — A, statement 1 only. The Greek periplous means a sailing-around, and as a literary form a periplus is a mariner's handbook that runs along a coast port by port, listing anchorages, distances, landmarks and what could be bought and sold at each. Statement 2 is where the item is won or lost: Erythra Thalassa means literally the red sea, and Greek geographers used it for the waters east and south of Egypt — the Red Sea proper, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean beyond. It was never the Mediterranean, which the Greeks knew simply as the sea, or in Roman usage Mare Nostrum. Since one statement is true and the other false, only 1 stands.
- (b)2 only — Reverses the item completely. Statement 2 is the false one, because Erythraean referred to the Red Sea and the wider north-western Indian Ocean, not to the Mediterranean; and statement 1, the meaning of periplus, is straightforwardly correct.
- (c)Both 1 and 2 — The likeliest wrong answer, chosen by a candidate who recognises the phrase Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, knows it is a Greek text about trade, and assumes any Greek sea must be the Mediterranean. The text is precisely about the run from Egypt down the Red Sea and across to India, so the sea it names cannot be the Mediterranean.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — Rejects statement 1, which is correct — periplus does mean sailing around, and the word survives in exactly that sense in the titles of several surviving Greek coastal guides.
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an anonymous Greek merchant's guide written in Egypt in about the middle of the first century CE. It describes the sea route from the Egyptian Red Sea ports down the African coast and across to Arabia and India, naming the market-towns, the sailing seasons and the goods traded at each. It is the single most valuable outside source for Indo-Roman trade, and its Indian entries include Barbaricum at the mouth of the Indus, Barygaza which is modern Bharuch on the Narmada, and Muziris and Nelcynda on the Malabar coast.
The trap is a genuine one because the term is elastic. Erythraean at its broadest, as in this text, took in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean as one maritime zone; at its narrowest in later cartography it meant the north-western Indian Ocean around Socotra. What it never covered, in any usage, was the Mediterranean. The other half of the item is simply vocabulary, and the meaning is worth fixing because several other ancient works carry the same word in their titles. It also pays to remember what the text is used for in Indian history: it corroborates the Sangam and archaeological evidence for a thriving first-century sea trade in pepper, spices, textiles, ivory and beryl against Roman gold, and its account of the monsoon sailing route is the reason that trade could run direct across open water rather than hugging the coast.
- Periplous in Greek means a sailing-around, and a periplus is a coastal navigation and trade handbook listing ports in order.
- Erythra Thalassa, the Erythraean Sea, covered the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean — never the Mediterranean.
- The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea was written by an anonymous Greek-speaking merchant of Roman Egypt in about the mid-first century CE.
- Its Indian market-towns include Barbaricum on the Indus, Barygaza which is Bharuch, and Muziris and Nelcynda on the Malabar coast.
One true statement and one false one, which leaves 1 only.
- Assuming any Greek geographical term must refer to the Mediterranean; Erythraean pointed the other way, towards the Indian Ocean.
- Treating the Periplus as a state document or a chronicle — it is a working merchant's handbook, which is why it is so precise about goods and prices.
Foreign accounts of ancient India come up as statement pairs testing a word's meaning against a place's identity, so learn the title of the Periplus as two separate facts — what periplus means, and which sea Erythraean was.
With reference to ancient South India, Korkai, Poompuhar and Muchiri were well known as
- (a) capital cities
- (b) ports
- (c) centres of iron-and-steel making
- (d) shrines of Jain Tirthankaras
Answer(b) ports
Muchiri is the Muziris of the Periplus, one of the Malabar market-towns the text describes — the same Indo-Roman sea trade, asked from the Indian end.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is best described as
- (a)a Roman imperial edict on eastern trade
- (b)a Greek merchant's handbook of ports and goods along the sea route from Egypt to India
- (c)a Buddhist chronicle of Sri Lanka
- (d)a Sangam anthology of Tamil poetry
Answer(b) a Greek merchant's handbook of ports and goods along the sea route from Egypt to India — written anonymously in Roman Egypt in about the mid-first century CE.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Barygaza, a port named in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, is identified with which modern town?
- (a)Bharuch
- (b)Kochi
- (c)Sopara
- (d)Tamluk
Answer(a) Bharuch — the Narmada-mouth port in Gujarat, one of the busiest market-towns in the text.