THE DEPARTURE OF GASPAR
With the appearance of the star, Gaspar from India/Sri Lanka used existing maritime trade routes to travel to Judea. Ships from the port of Cranganore, the presumed starting point of the Magus Gaspar, maintained regular connections with the port of the kingdom of Aksum in Ethiopia, where King Bazen, also known as the Magus Balthazar, reigned. Through the port of Aksum, the Romans imported silk, spices, and precious stones by sea from India.
The link between Cranganore and Aksum was made possible by the monsoon winds. Voltaire (18th century), renowned for his translations of apocryphal texts that provide valuable information about the Magi, wrote: “Osorio (bishop of Algarve in the 16th century) reports that a king of Cranganore, in the kingdom of Calicut, undertook this journey with two Magi. Upon returning to his country, this king built a chapel in honor of the Virgin Mary.”
The maritime route between India and the port of Aksum ran along the coast of Oman, south of the Arabian Peninsula. “A king from the island of Ceylon, named Perumal (the great chief), sailed to the coast of Muscat to join other kings who were going to worship the Lord in Bethlehem,” wrote Joao de Barros, a Portuguese historian (16th century)