A Record of Buddhistic kingdoms: being an account by the Chinese monk Fa-hsien of travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399-414) in search of the Buddhist books of discipline

This country originally had no human inhabitants, but was occupied only by spirits and nâgas, with which merchants of various countries carried on a trade. Through the coming and going of merchants, when they went away, the people of their various countries heard how pleasant the land was, and flocked to it in numbers till it became a great nation.