Apparently these early communities felt no need of the outside world; it was east and west Asia that sought them out for their exotic and valuable products. Before the actual dates of contact are recorded by the Chinese, there is evidence from the Indian Jakata stories, the Ramayana, the Tamil poem, Pattinappalai, that voyages to the Land and the Island of Gold were fairly common in the early centuries A.D. (Wolters 1967). India’s supply of gold was restricted after the barbarians cut the supply routes from the Siberian source, and the shortage was compounded in the late first century when Vespasian forbade the export of bullion.