Indian maritime history
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| History of the Indian Subcontinent | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stone Age | 70,000–7000 BC | ||||
| Mehrgarh Culture | 7000–3300 BC | ||||
| Indus Valley Civilization | 3300–1700 BC | ||||
| Late Harappan Culture | 1700–1300 BC | ||||
| Vedic Civilization | 1500–500 BC | ||||
| Kuru Dynasty | 1200–316 BC | ||||
| Maha Janapadas | 700–300 BC | ||||
| Magadha Empire | 684–26 BC | ||||
| Shishunaga Dynasty | - 684–424 BC | ||||
| - Nanda Dynasty | - 424–321BC | ||||
| Maurya Dynasty | - 321–184 BC | ||||
| Sunga Dynasty | - 184–73 BC | ||||
| Middle Kingdoms | 232 BC–1279 | ||||
| Satavahana Kingdom | - 230 BC–199 | ||||
| Indo-Greeks (Yavanas) | - 180 BC–10 | ||||
| - Indo-Scythians (Sakas) | - 110–10 BC | ||||
| - Kushan Empire | - 1–375 | ||||
| Indo-Parthians (Pahlavas) | - 20–100 | ||||
| - Gupta Empire | - 240–550 | ||||
| Pallava Kingdom | - 275–901 | ||||
| Chalukya Dynasty | - 543–1200 | ||||
| - Pandyan Kingdom | - 560–1365 | ||||
| Harsha's Empire | - 606–648 | ||||
| Chola Empire | - 848–1279 | ||||
| Early Islamic Empires | 979–1596 | ||||
| - Ghaznavid Empire | - 979–1160 | ||||
| - Delhi Sultanate | - 1210–1526 | ||||
| Deccan Sultanates | - 1490–1596 | ||||
| Hoysala Empire | 1040–1346 | ||||
| Vijayanagara Empire | 1336–1565 | ||||
| Mughal Era | 1526–1707 | ||||
| Maratha Empire | 1674–1761 | ||||
| Colonial Era | 1757–1947 | ||||
| Modern India | 1947 onwards | ||||
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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. Ships from the harbour at the ancient port city of Lothal established trade with Mesopotamia. The decline of the Indus civilization between 1900-1700 BC led to an absence of maritime trade in South Asia for almost 1000 years.Alexander
During the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great shipped the bulk of his army from North Western India (Patala or Xylinepolis) 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.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 dervied from the sanskrit word "Navgath" also. Its believed that the navigation as a science orignated 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) [#endnote_Kautilya]. 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.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 Professor Christian Lassen hoped to close the controversy in the 19th century by identifying it with Abhira in the province of Gujarat in India [#endnote_Lassen].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 [#endnote_Ptolemy]. 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 [#endnote_bevan].
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 [#endnote_Strabo].Pliny complained that the Indian luxury trade was depleting the Roman treasury to the extent of 50 million sesterces annually [#endnote_Pliny]. 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.
Journeys to the East and later centuries
Amaury De Reincourt in his book, Soul Of India, records that "The brightest sun shining over Southeast Asia in the first centuries A.D. was Indian Civilization." [#endnote_reincourt] This maritime expertise helped disperse the Indian civilisation as far as the islands of Indonesia, Java and Sumatra.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.
Additional Reading
- 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 8121509165
- Habib, Muhammad. Kitab al-muhabbar, ed. Ilse Lichtenstädter. Hyderabad, 1361/1942.
- De Riencourt, Amaury. The Soul of India, Hyperion Books, 1990, 432 pgs. ISBN 0907855032
References
- ↑ 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
See also
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