Consider the following statements with reference to early trade :
1. There are references of numerous river-ports in ancient India.
2. There were large entrepots of goods and traffic.
Which of the abo

Question

Consider the following statements with reference to early trade :
1. There are references of numerous river-ports in ancient India.
2. There were large entrepots of goods and traffic.
Which of the above statements is/are correct ?

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Both 1 and 2. Statement 1 is true: before metalled roads, rivers were the cheap highways for bulk goods, and early Indian literature and archaeology name many settlements that worked as river ports — Pataliputra where the Son joins the Ganga, Kaushambi on the Yamuna, Champa and Varanasi on the Ganga, Tamralipti at the head of the Ganga delta and Bhrigukachchha (Bharuch) at the mouth of the Narmada. Statement 2 is also true: several of these were not merely local markets but entrepots — transhipment centres where goods from many regions were gathered, stored and re-exported. The Greek mariner's handbook Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (mid-first century CE) describes Barbaricum on the Indus, Barygaza (Bharuch), Muziris and Nelcynda as 'market-towns', and says Muziris 'abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia, and by the Greeks'. Both statements standing, the answer is (a).

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Both propositions are standard, well-documented descriptions of early Indian commerce — attested in Sangam poetry, Buddhist and Jaina literature, the Arthashastra and Graeco-Roman accounts alike.  (c) Rejects statement 2, but the entrepot function is exactly what the Periplus and the Roman coin hoards of south India record — goods were collected and redistributed at these towns, not just consumed there.  (d) Rejects statement 1, yet river ports are among the best-attested features of the early Indian economy; a port in this period did not have to be on the sea.

Concept: Early Indian trade worked on two linked networks. Inland, goods moved along the great trunk routes — the Uttarapatha in the north and the Dakshinapatha in the peninsula — and, wherever possible, along navigable rivers; the settlements at usable landing points on the Ganga, Yamuna and Narmada functioned as river ports. Outward, coastal towns handled the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal trades. A town becomes an entrepot when it does more than serve its own hinterland: goods are gathered there, stored and re-exported, so it lives off traffic rather than off local demand.

State PCS 2024 Q2 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q2 — History PYQ with Answer