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Note on Mahābhārata II 28
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Edgerton's identification of a reference to Rome in the Mahābhārata deserves fresh attention in view of Sir Mortimer Wheeler's discovery in 1945 of traces of an Indo-Roman trading station at Arakamedu, near Pondicherry, with its train of consequential archæological implications. The passage in the Mahābhārata occurs as part of the “Digvijaya” of Sahadeva in the Sabhāparva (Mah. ii, 28/47–9, B.O.R.I. ed):—
“By means of envoys he brought under control and made to pay tribute the one-footed people, the Kēvalas who live in the forest, the city of Sañjayanti—the Pānḍyas Draviḍas together with the Chodras and Keralas, the Andhras and Talavanas and Kalingas. By means of envoys he made to pay tribute and brought under control Antioch and Rome and the city of the Yavanas,”
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References
page 201 note 1 Edgerton, F., in JAOS., vol. 58, 06, 1938, p. 262Google Scholar, to be read with Mahābhārata, ii, 28/47–9 (B.O.R.I. edition, fasc. xiii), and Edgerton's editorial comments in fasc. xiv, pp. 502 and xxvii. The Arikamedu excavations are reported in Ancient India, No. 2, July, 1946; and SirWheeler's, MortimerRome Beyond the Imperial Frontiers (London, 1954)Google Scholar, contains a useful summary both of the archæological position and relevant data from Greek and Roman works. See further, Warmington, E. H., Commerce between the Boman Empire and India, 1928Google Scholar.
page 202 note 1 S. K. Belvalkar on Mah., vi, 10/54, regards mention there of Romāṇas in the context of Northern India peoples as a mere accident of name, while describing the reference in this “Sabhṇ” passage as “evidently to a seafaring people and their capital”.
page 202 note 2 Actually with reference to this passage. See reprint against Fr. xxxiv in Mull. Frg. His. Or., 1878, vol. iiGoogle Scholar.