Indian maritime history
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India has had a maritime history dating back to around 4,500 years, since the Indus Valley Civilization. The impetus to later re-develop maritime links was trade (primarily in cotton, pepper and other spices), due to the monopoly of the Persians and later the Arabs over land-based caravan routes. The later maritime journeys spread the influence of ancient and medieval Indian civilisation as far as the islands of Indonesia to the east, the islands of Japan to the north, and the east coast of Africa to the west.
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[edit] Indus Valley Civilization
The world's first tidal dock was built in Lothal around 2500 BC during the Harappan civilisation at Lothal near the present day Mangrol harbour on the Gujarat coast. Other ports were probably at Balakot and Dwarka. However, it is probable that many small-scale ports, and not massive ports, were used for the Harappan maritime trade.[1] Ships from the harbour at these ancient port cities established trade with Mesopotamia.[2]
[edit] Maritime trade with western Asia
Several Indian or East Asian products (e.g. Cinnamon, Cassia, Nard) are mentioned in the Bible[3] (as early as the time of the Exodus) and by Sappho[4]. Indian products were already known in the mythical Punt and Ophir.[5] Cinnamon and Cassia are spices that originated from China and South-East Asia[6], and South India was probably along the trade routes for these products.
[edit] References in Bible
One of the earliest references to maritime trade with India is from the Bible (I Kings 9:28) which states that King Solomon collaborated with King Hiram of Tyre/Sidon, and built a fleet at Elath and Eziongeher (or Ezion-geber). Manned by Phoenician sailors, it sailed to Ophir (also spelt as Qphir) and brought back many treasures which two kings shared between themselves. The precise location of the port of Ophir is another unsettled topic. Dutch/German Indologist Christian Lassen hoped to close the controversy in the 19th century by identifying it with Abhira in the province of Gujarat in India .
[edit] Alexander
During the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great shipped the bulk of his army from North Western India to Egypt via the Indian Ocean led by his friend, Nearchus who also wrote the book, Indikê about the voyage. This was after he sailed down the Indus.
[edit] House of Ptolemy
Around 116 BC an interesting incident that had happened in Egypt was reported by Posidonius (ca. 135 BC - 51 BC (also spelled Poseidonius), and later recorded by Strabo. We are told that a shipwrecked Indian sailor was discovered, half-dead, by coast guards on the Red Sea, and was brought to the Egyptian King Physkon (also known as Physcon or Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II) during 118 BC. The sailor said he was the sole survivor of a ship that had sailed from India. The sailor promised to guide any of the King’s navigators on a voyage to India. So a Greek sailor, Eudoxus of Kyzicus (himself an envoy from Greece to Ptolemy VIII), was appointed to that mission.
Poseidonius recounted two direct journeys to India. The first in 118 BC, guided by the Indian sailor, proved successful. From Berenice Harbor to Muziris below Calicut took 70 days. Eudoxus returned with a cargo of aromatics and precious stones. Ptolemy VIII promptly confiscated the cargo.
The second, under the sole guidance of Eudoxus, occurred in 116 BC, just after the death of Ptolemy VIII and during the reign of Cleopatra III, his wife and queen.
A position titled, Commander of the Red and Indian Seas, came into being under Ptolemy XII, also nicknamed Auletes (80-51 BC) to encourage trade with India . The best known occupant of this office was a gentleman named, Callimachus the epistrategos, who was the Commander between July 78 BC and February 51 BC .
[edit] Roman connection
Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar in 26 BC commissioned his prefect in Egypt, Aelius Gallus, to capture the port of Aden to attack the Ethiopians who controlled the trade from India. This was after the death of Cleopatra in 30 B.C. Although Augustus was unsuccessful in capturing Arabia Felix (present day Yemen), the Romans opened sea routes to India through the Red Sea, where they could buy Chinese silk, bypassing war-torn areas and diminishing the role of Persians and Arabs who previously dominated the trade. Greek writer, Nicolaus of Damascus records an Indian delegation from Pandion (Pandyan?) visited Emperor Augustus in 13 BC at Antioch .
Pliny complained that the Indian luxury trade was depleting the Roman treasury to the extent of 50 million sesterces annually . The Roman Senate even contemplated banning the use of Indian cotton in the clothing, Toga that Roman citizens wore, because it was so expensive to import.
The Periplus Maris Erythraei ("Circumnavigation of the Erythrean i.e., Red Sea"), by an unknown author presumed to be a Greek merchant, written in the 1st century AD, lists a series of ports along the Indian coast, including Muziris (Cranganore), Colchi (Korkai), Poduca, and Sopatma. It also records the accomplishment of Hippalus, who having determined the patterns of the Indian monsoons, discovered a sea-route from the Red Sea to Southern India. The book also references the port of Kodungallur (anglicised to Cranganore, and also known as Muziris or Shinkli), in present day Kerala on India's West coast. Pliny refers to this port as primum emporium Indiae.
[edit] Mauryan Empire
The earliest known reference to an organization devoted to ships in ancient India is to the Mauryan Empire from the 4th century BC. The word navigation is derived from the sanskrit word "Navgath" also. Its believed that the navigation as a science originated on the river Indus some 5000 years ago. Emperor Chandragupta Maurya's Prime Minister Kautilya's Arthashastra devotes a full chapter on the state department of waterways under navadhyaksha (Sanskrit for Superintendent of ships) . The term, nava dvipantaragamanam (Sanskrit for sailing to other lands by ships) appears in this book in addition to appearing in the Buddhist text, Baudhayana Dharmasastra as the interpretation of the term, Samudrasamyanam.
[edit] Journeys to the East and later centuries
Indian maritime expertise helped disperse the Indian civilisation (including Hinduism and Buddhism) as far as the islands of Indonesia, Java and Sumatra.
[edit] Great cholas
The cholas were experts in ship building, sea trade flourished under their empire with trade routes established well in south-east Asia. Further cholas also spread Hinduism in Indonesia(java) and other south-east Asian countries.
Travels of the Friar Odoric between 1316-1330 AD mention trips between the Persian Gulf, and the West coast of India.
Finally, the advent of Portuguese sailor, Vasco Da Gama in 1496 opened up the trade routes to India to the Europeans. As a result of the Battle of Swally, the Portuguese monopoly began to crumble and the rise of the British East India Company began.
[edit] References
- ^ Possehl, Gregory. Meluhha. in: J. Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996, 133–208
- ^ (eg Lal 1997: 182-188)
- ^ Jean-François Salles, Achaemenid and Hellenistic Trade in the Indian Ocean, in: Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133–208
- ^ Jean-François Salles, Achaemenid and Hellenistic Trade in the Indian Ocean, in: Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133–208
- ^ Jean-François Salles, Achaemenid and Hellenistic Trade in the Indian Ocean, in: Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133–208
- ^ Jean-François Salles, Achaemenid and Hellenistic Trade in the Indian Ocean, in: Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996a, 133–208
- ^ Kautilya. Arthashastra, Bk. II, Ch. 28.
- ^ Christian Lassen, Indische Altertumskunde (1847-1861)
- ^ Bevan, E.R. The House of Ptolemy,London: Methuen Publishing, 1927, Ch. XIII
- ^ Sammelbuch, 8036, Coptos (variously dated 110/109 BC or 74/3 BC; and no. 2264 (78 BC); Inscriptions Philae, 52 (62 BC).
- ^ Woodcock, George. The Greeks in India, London: Faber & Faber, 1966, p. 23
- ^ Strabo, xv. 1, on the immolation of the Sramana in Athens (Para. 73)
- ^ Pliny. Natural History, 6.96-111
- ^ De Riencourt, Amaury. The Soul of India, p.158-162
[edit] Further reading
- Maritime Heritage of India. K.S. Behera (Ed.) 1999. New Delhi: Aryan Books International [8]
- Mookerji, Radha Kumud. Indian Shipping - A History of the Sea-Borne Trade and Marine Activity of The Indians From The Earliest Times, Bombay : Longmans, Green and Co., 1962. 283 pgs. (Originally published by Calcutta: Orient Longmans, 1912). ISBN 81-215-0916-5
- Habib, Muhammad. Kitab al-muhabbar, ed. Ilse Lichtenstädter. Hyderabad, 1361/1942.
- De Riencourt, Amaury. The Soul of India, Hyperion Books, 1990, 432 pgs. ISBN 0-907855-03-2
- Julian Reade (ed.) The Indian Ocean in Antiquity. London: Kegan Paul Intl. 1996
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ship-building Bibliography
- Ancient Ship-Building & Maritime Trade D. P. Agrawal & Lalit Tiwari
- ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE MARITIME HISTORY OF ANCIENT ORISSA
- Seafearing in Ancient India
- ANTIQUITY OF SAILING SHIPS OF INDIAN OCEAN: EVIDENCE FROM ANCIENT INDIAN ART
- Maritime heritage in and around Chilika Lake, Orissa: Geological evidences for its decline
- Maritime Lanka
