HINDU PERIOD
etc.) for which they had been paid in advance, built a ship secretly, embarked their families, and emigrated down the Ganges and out to an island over-sea.[1] The Vālahassa-Jātaka (Jāt. ii. 128, no. 196) mentions[2] five hundred dealers[3] who were fellow passengers on an ill-fated ship. The Supparaka-Jātaka[4] (Jāt. iv. 138-142) records the perilous adventures on the sea undergone by a company of seven hundred merchants[5] who sailed from the seaport town of Bharukaccha[6] in a vessel under the pilotage of a blind but accomplished mariner.[7] The Mahājanaka-Jātaka (Jāt. vi. 32-35, no. 539)
- ↑ "There they sailed at the wind's will until they reached an island that lay in the midst of the sea."—Ibid.
- ↑ The Vālahassa-Jātaka relates how "some shipwrecked mariners escaped from a city of goblins by the aid of a flying horse."—Ibid.
- ↑ "Now it happened that five hundred shipwrecked traders were cast ashore near the city of these sea-goblins."—Ibid.
- ↑ "The story mentions how a blind mariner was made the king's assessor and valuer, and how he was pilot to a vessel which traversed the perilous seas of Fairyland."—Ibid.
- ↑ "It happened that some merchants had got ready a ship and were casting about for a skipper. . . . Now there were seven hundred souls aboard the ship."—Ibid.
- ↑ "There was a seaport town named Bharukacch or Marsh of Bharu. At that time the Buddhisatta was born into the family of a master mariner there. . . . They gave him the name of Supparaka Kumara. . . . Afterwards, when his father died, he became the head of his mariners. . . . With him aboard no ship ever came to harm."—Ibid.
- ↑ "Four months the vessel had been voyaging in far-distant regions; and now, as though endowed with supernatural powers, it returned in one single day to the seaport town of Bharukacch."—Ibid.
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