The god of merchandise
Above: Budha, Hindu god of Mercury
British Museum, Konark
Below: Lord Budha
In Indian astrology, Mercury is called Budha and represents communication. Budha is the son of the moon and the god of merchandise and protector of merchants. According to the Atharv Ved, Budh was born to Chandrama and Tara and since the child was very intelligent, Lord Brahma gave the name Budh to him.
In Chinese astrology, Mercury is ruled by the element water which is diplomatic, kind and intuitive.
In Roman mythology Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness.
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology, an Olympian god, patron of boundaries and of the travellers who travel across them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves and liars, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics and sports, of weights and measures, of invention, and of commerce in general.
The Greeks' interpretation of Hermes in the Egyptian pantheon is Thoth. His chief shrine in the city of Khmun was renamed Hermopolis Magna during the Greco-Roman era.
Left: Siltstone obelisk of King Nectanebo II. According to the vertical inscriptions he set up this obelisk at the doorway of the sanctuary of Thoth, the Thrice-Great, Lord of Hermopolis.
Hermopolis stood on the borders of Upper and Lower Egypt. A little to south of the city was the castle of Hermopolis, at which point the river craft from the upper country paid toll Strabo xvii. p. 813; Ptol. loc. cit.; the Bahr Jusuf in Arabic).
Trade and the tax on trade - this is the fabric of history against which the great events of Antiquity are played.
Trade good flowed westwards and mainly gold flowed east in payment.
These goods - and the promises of the merchants - were protected in Greco-India by Budha and the profit, including taxation, built the Buddhist monasteries along the trade routes and filled the treasury of the Greco-Indian kings and princes. (Trade, Urbanism, and Agricultural Expansion: Buddhist Monastic institutions and the state in the Early Historic western Deccan by KD Morrison - 1995)
When the merchants of Central Asia came into this region for trade, they learnt about Buddhism and accepted it as their religion. With the support of these merchants, many cave monasteries were established along the trade routes across Central Asia. (Buddhism in East Asia)
Left: Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BCE-10 CE)
Bactria was introduced to Buddhism by the 1st century AD as suggested by the Buddhist settlement discovered at Airtam, 18 kilometers northwest of Termez. For the next few centuries Kushan/Bactrian Buddhist centers were expanded to Hadda, Bamiyan and Kondukistan. Among them the most important one is Bamiyan, 240 kilometers northwest of Kabul, Afghanistan. It became one of the greatest Buddhist monastic communities in all Central Asia by the 4th century. At the west stands the 53 meter Buddha, still the largest statue in the world. With its strategic location at the intersection of roads to Persia, India, Tarim basin, and China, it developed an art style with a fusion of Iranian, Indian, Gandharan and local style into an independent mode of its own. This style of Buddhist art traveled eastward and was quickly adopted at Kizil, Xinjiang and ultimately Dunhuang. Buddhism reached the height of its power in the 8th and 9th centuries in Afghanistan before it fell to the Arabs.
In terms of the distribution of Buddhist schools, we rely on the travel accounts of the pilgrims and envoys. Hadda was a center of Hinayana (Small Vehicle). Bamiyan, described by Xuan Zang in the 7th century, practiced Hinayana Buddhism whereas by 727 AD, another visitor Hui-chao described the monastery devoting to Mahayana (Big Vehicle) Buddhism. Other centers such as Kapisa, Kakrak and Fondukistan seemed to also follow Mahayana Buddhism, from the evidence of their paintings and sculptures.
- Buddhism and Its Spread Along the Silk Road
In Hindu astrology, the stone of Budha is emerald and the source was Greco-India - the ancient emerald mine of the Swat Valley (now in Pakistan and fought over with Al Queda).
The independent monarchs of this region came under Achaemenid influence and in Greek accounts these towns have been identified as Ora and Bazira. Ancient Gandhara, the valley of Pekhawar, with the adjacent hilly regions of Swat and Buner, Dir and Bajaur was one of the earliest centres of Buddhist religion and culture. The Gandhara school is credited with the first representations of the Buddha in human form.
Mingora is the largest city in Swat and many Buddhist remains and carvings have been discovered in the nearby Jambill River Valley. At Panr, a stupa and monastery dated to the 1st century CE has been excavated.
Gems, including emeralds, were one of the high-value trade goods imported from Greco-India into the Greco-Roman world.
There is another surviving ancient document that concerns Eastern trade items that may have passed through Berenike. It is a rescript (i.e., a legal ruling) in the Digest of Justinian 39.4.16 (Mommsen et al. 1985: 406-407). The rescript was excerpted from De Delatoribus Liber Singularis, a manuscript on fiscal law written by the Roman jurist Aelius Marcianus in the early third century AD (Honoré 1962: 212-213; Jolowicz and Nicholas 1972: 394; Giovanni 1989: 13-14). Line 7 of the rescript gives a long and varied list of trade items that are subject to import duty (vectigalia), including lapis universus ("all sorts of stones"). Schoff (1912: 289) offers the unsubstantiated suggestion that these duties were paid at the Egyptian port of Alexandria. If true, then some of these items would have come into Egypt through its Red Sea ports.
Six of the nine stones listed in the rescript are also mentioned in the Periplus: hyacinthus (sapphire corundum), adamas (diamond or colorless corundum), saffirinus (lapis lazuli), callainus (turquoise), onyx Arabicus and sardonyx (the onychine lithia of the Periplus, i.e., varieties of agate). The seventh stone is smaragdus (emerald beryl), and the last two are ceraunium and beryllus. Ceraunium corresponds to Pliny's (NH 37.48.132 and 37.51.134) ceraunia from Carmania (southern Iran), and is possibly a variety of opalescent plagioclase known as moonstone (Ball 1950: 95; Eichholz 1962: 272-275).
- Harrell, J.A., 1999, Geology; a chapter in S.E. Sidebotham and W.Z. Wendrich (eds.), "Berenike 1997 - Report of the Excavations at Berenike and the Survey of the Egyptian Eastern Desert, Including Excavations at Shenshef": Centre for Non-Western Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands, p. 107-121.
For the archaeology, see The Berenike Project (1994-2001):
In 275 BC, Ptolemy II (Philadelphos), king of Egypt, founded a shipping port on the Red Sea coast and named it after his mother, Berenike I. The most important reason for creating this new harbour was the need of the Ptolemies for elephants. These were used in the wars against the Seleucids in the Near East, who blocked the import of Indian elephants. The Ptolemies decided to catch African elephants in what now is eastern Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia and ship them over the Red Sea on special ships (elephantagoi) in order to land them in southern Egypt and walk them to the Nile valley.
The geographic position of Berenike was eminently suitable since it was a natural harbour, protected against the prevailing northern winds by a large peninsula. Furthermore, the dangerous shipping route over the Red Sea, with its treacherous coral reefs and its pirates operating from the Arabian peninsula made it desirable to have a safe landing place as far to the south as possible. From Berenike there were overland routes through the Eastern desert to the Nile valley, protected by way-stations (hydreumata). These provided the caravans with water and shelter.
In the Roman period, Berenike developed into a trade emporium: spices, myrrh, frankincense, pearls and textiles were shipped via Berenike to Alexandria and Rome. The nature of this trade was more or less known from textual evidence, especially from the so-called Periplus of the Erythraean Sea which lists the harbours along the Red Sea, East African, South Arabian and Indian coasts as well as the commodities which were in demand in these emporia.
In the West during the first century, based in Alexandria, was the greatest tax-farmer of all: Tiberius Julius Alexander Major, known as Alexander the Alabarch, brother of Philo, author of the first christology. Alexander managed the estate - the total wealth - of Antonia Minor, the espiskopos - hostage-holder - of Rome.
Marcus Julius Alexander is one of the two sons of Alexander. The Petrie Ostraca mentions Marcus’ activities at the ports of Myos Hormos and Berenice Troglodytica between 37-44. Marcus’ father and Herodian King Agrippa I were long time friends and Agrippa arranged for his daughter, princess Berenice, to marry Marcus in 41.