Cunningham’s Ancient Geography of India

ALEXANDER THE GREAT'S march through the Punjab and Sindh brought for the first time the direct Greek knowledge of India to the banks of the Sutlej. [...] And the discovery made at this time by Hippalus (a navigator who made a study of the winds of the Indian Ocean) of the periodic nttture of the monsoons enabling the European navigators to take a"INTRODUCTION xxv direct route to India 'and not a coasting course became a valuable aid to the commErcial. [...] Erythhean sea was the whole expanse of the ocean reaching from the coast of Africa to the utmost boundary of ancient knowledge of the East. [...] This Periplus contains the best account of the commerce carried on from the Red Sea and the coast of Africa to the East Indies during the time that Egypt was a Roman province. [...] As the Greeks and the early Arabs visited India either in the track of some invader or as merchants their accounts chiefly inform us of the military glories of nations or of kings little known or altogether unknown in Indian literature which is deficient in the historical sense or of the trades of places which' have long ago been deserted or buried in the silts of rivers and are no longer rememb