Kashmir, Tamilnadu, Panini, Abhinavagupta, etc.

[DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA]

I think this mode of movement is costlier than even
the transport by horse (high costs of building a ship).
Mostly this transport was used for business and occasionally
for invasions. Use of this mode for mass scale cultural
diffusion is rare.

The absense of mahAyAna in Sri lanka and Southeast Asia
perhaps illustrates this, whereas Tibet  practically
has all the shades of mahAyAna eventhough the land route
is difficult.

regards,

sarma.

At 03:31 PM 1/11/99 -1000, you wrote:
>On Mon, 11 Jan 1999, DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA wrote:
>
>> Let us be clear about some general commonsense points.
>>
>> 1. Because of the poor means of communication in the old days, normally
>>    any thing that travels to tamilnadu has to go either through
>>    Andhra or Maharashtra. This means that whether it is mahAyAna or
>>    mahAbhAshyA, normally it will be communicated to tamilnadu after it
>>    has been established in these two regions. The chances of a jump
>>    right from north to tamilnadu is very very unlikely. Remember
>>    there were no aeroplanes in those days and travel was by foot or
>>    at the most by horse drawn carriage and very few people could afford
>>    the latter.
>
>However, sea travel was well-established
>even in ancient days -- which means that
>people could possibly have gone
>directly between north and south India
>without making an extended transit of
>middle India.  A well-known example:
>the Sinhalas of Sri Lanka are said to
>have arrived -- by ship -- either from
>Orissa, or from Gujarat, or possibly both.
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Raja.
>
>