The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (28 page)

The maritime history of the
Indian Ocean unfolded in ways completely different from that of the confined seas of the Mediterranean world. The great distances, the lack of enclosure by opposing shores, and the paucity of island chains linking landmasses ensured that the interactions of Indian Ocean mariners and their respective societies were less intense and immediate than those of the Mediterranean. Seafaring allowed for the transmission of goods and ideas, but without generating the violent rivalries and naval clashes that accompanied such exchanges in the Mediterranean. At the same time, long-distance maritime trade had less impact on political developments, and seafaring never attained the cultural significance it did for people of the Mediterranean. Yet if maritime-driven change was more subtle here than elsewhere, it proved no less durable.

Mediterranean traders became directly involved in the
Red Sea and Indian Ocean in the fourth century
BCE
and their contacts intensified following Rome’s annexation of Egypt three hundred years later. The vitality of Mediterranean engagement is borne out by Roman complaints about the drain of precious metals to pay for eastern luxuries, by hoards of Roman coins found in India and
Southeast Asia, and even by a Chinese account of a Roman merchant at the Han court in the second century ce. Despite outsiders’ interest and participation in the Indian Ocean trade, sailors native to its shores were the primary agents of exchange. Indian investors guaranteed the loans of Mediterranean merchants, and Indian merchants traded in Egyptian Red Sea ports. Early Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and secular laws offer glimpses of the maritime world from the perspective of the Indian Ocean; and Tamil epics from the second century
CE
on paint a dazzling portrait of a maritime
commerce that southern
Indians have engaged in, and often dominated, ever since. Connecting the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to the Bay of
Bengal and Southeast Asia, and intersecting with coastal and land routes of the subcontinent, these trading networks became the thoroughfares along which successive waves of long-distance navigators penetrated the Indian Ocean world from the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the arrival of European traders at the end of the fifteenth.

Although the name India today identifies a single nation-state, before 1947 it referred to the entire subcontinent south of the
Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and
Himalaya Mountains and east of the
Indus River from which it takes its name. It thus comprised not only India, but Bangladesh and part of
Pakistan. Geographically the subcontinent can be divided into three primary regions: the Indo-Gangetic floodplains of the north, which form a broad arc from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal; the
Deccan, a tableland between the Narmada and
Krishna Rivers; and the Nigiri Hills at the southern end of the peninsula. The chief ethnic division is between the Aryan population of the north and the
Dravidian speakers of the south, whose major languages correspond to the southernmost states of modern India:
Kannada in
Karnataka,
Malayalam in
Kerala, Tamil in
Tamil Nadu, and Telugu in
Andhra Pradesh. The west coast of India is divided between the marshes of the Rann of Kachchh (which spread south from the Indus delta), the
Kathiawar Peninsula of
Gujarat, the
Konkan Coast of
Maharashtra state, and the
Malabar Coast (Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala). In the east, the Bay of Bengal washes the
Coromandel Coast of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,
Kalinga (northern Andhra Pradesh and
Orissa), and the mouths of the Ganga (Ganges) River. The southern end of the peninsula is bordered by two chains of mountains, the Western Ghats, separated from the Arabian Sea by a narrow coastal plain, and the lower Eastern Ghats. India has few major navigable rivers. Those of the west coast are the Indus and, in Gujarat, the Narmada and Tapti. In what is now Bengal, the Ganga delta merges with that of the Brahmaputra, while to the south the Godavari, Krishna, and Kaveri Rivers also empty into the Bay of Bengal.

The millennium following the end of the
Harappan civilization around 1700
BCE
was characterized by the rise of relatively small chiefdoms and clans along the
Indo-Gangetic plain. This is the period in which the
Vedas, the foundation texts of Hinduism, were composed. The product of a people bound to the land, the Vedas seldom refer to maritime activities, but they and other sacred
and secular South Asian writings contain enough incidental references to sea trade to demonstrate that even if long-distance contacts with the Persian Gulf were interrupted after the demise of the Indus Valley civilization, people continued to go to sea for their livelihoods. One of the oldest references, from the
Rig Veda, recounts how the Asvins (gods of healing) came to the help of their friend’s son,
Bhujyu, while he was on campaign against a neighboring island: “
you brought him back in vessels of your own, floating over the ocean, and keeping out the waters.… This exploit you achieved, Asvins, in the ocean, where there is nothing to give support, nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to.” The practice of deep-sea navigation is confirmed by an earlier passage that describes
Varuna (the Vedic equivalent of Poseidon or Neptune) “
who knows the path of the birds flying through the air; he, abiding in the ocean, knows the course of ships.” This image suggests the practice of Indian sailors finding their way at sea by following the flight paths of birds, as did their counterparts in Oceania, the Mediterranean, and elsewhere.

That merchants were expected to venture overseas is confirmed by two of the oldest and most comprehensive texts on the legal aspects of seafaring, the
Arthasastra
and the
Laws of Manu
, or
Manusmrti
. The
Arthasastra
is a detailed handbook of governance commonly thought to date from the reign of the first Mauryan king,
Chandragupta, in the late fourth century
BCE
. After coming to the throne of the lower Ganga kingdom of Magadha, Chandragupta extended his authority across the Indo-Gangetic plain. In the northwest he pushed his borders west from the Punjab across Pakistan and into
Afghanistan and fought the Hellenistic king
Seleucus I. As part of the peace, Seleucus gave his daughter in marriage to Chandragupta’s son,
Bindusara, and appointed
Megasthenes as ambassador to the Mauryan court at
Pataliputra (
Patna) on the Ganga. In return, Chandragupta gave Seleucus five hundred war elephants, which the latter used to good effect in his wars with
Ptolemaic Egypt, a move that would prove a catalyst for the Ptolemies’ development of
Red Sea trade and the penetration of the Indian Ocean from the west. Chandragupta also expanded south to the Narmada River, the northern border of the Deccan, which Bindusara subsequently conquered along with Kerala and Karnataka to the southwest.

Chandragupta’s most important advisor was
Kautilya, the putative author of the
Arthasastra
. In his detailed instructions for the role and conduct of the controller of shipping (
navadhyaksa
), a civil office whose functions are comparable to that of a modern coast guard and revenue marine, Kautilya noted that he “
should look after activities concerning sea voyages and ferries at the mouths of rivers, as well as ferries over natural lakes, artificial lakes and rivers.” The controller collected taxes and duties payable by riverbank villages and towns, fishermen, traders, and divers for conch shell and pearls, as well as
port dues from foreign ships and fines for people using river ferries at times or places not prescribed by law. He could confiscate goods being shipped without an official seal, and when fishermen or traders used boats owned by the state or king he collected the appropriate fees. The controller of shipping also had a humanitarian function: “
He should rescue boats that have gone out of their course or are tossed about by a gale, like a father. He should make goods that have fallen in water either duty-free or pay half the duty.” This rescue work was likely carried out by the ferries he maintained, “
big boats in [the] charge of a captain, a pilot, a manipulator of the
cutter and ropes and a bailer of water, on big rivers that have to be ferried on [even] in winter and summer, [and] small ones on small rivers flowing [only] in the rainy season.”

The controller of shipping may have had an additional military function. According to
Megasthenes, Chandragupta’s advisors included an admiral, who, like Kautilya’s controller of shipping, rented ships to sailors and merchants. Megasthenes observes that whereas artisans, tradesmen, and day-laborers “
render services prescribed by the state” as tribute, “shipbuilders receive wages and provisions, at a published scale, for these work for him [the king] alone.” The controller of shipping was subordinate to the
director of trade, who determined the rates for leasing vessels and encouraged foreign trade by granting exemptions from duties and fees. He was also responsible for deciding when to sail, provisioning ships for their voyages, the prices at which goods should be bought and sold, and the regulations in force at, and dangers peculiar to, various ports of call.

Perhaps revealing an ignorance of practical seafaring, Kautilya broke with prevailing opinion on the benefits of sea trade and how best to conduct it. Whereas most people viewed sea trade as more efficient—“
involving little expenditure and exertion and yielding plenty of goods,” as Kautilya puts it—he maintained that land transport was safer and less subject to seasonal variation. He further argued that “as between a route along the shore and one on the high sea, the route along the coast is preferable because of the large number of ports, [as is] a river-route, because of perennial use and because the dangers in it can be withstood.” Yet rivers can be impassable in the dry season, and most marine casualties take place near coasts, not only because the highest concentration of vessels is there, but because shallow waters and lee shores pose more dangers to seagoing ships than does the open ocean.

It is often claimed that Hindu scripture forbids seafaring, yet the evidence is ambiguous at best. One ancient text cautions that one can lose caste for “
making voyages by sea” and “trading with merchandise of any description,” while another takes voyages as a given and advises, sensibly enough, “
Let him who teaches … avoid ships of doubtful solidity.” Although a
Brahman of the
highest caste, Kautilya expresses no reservations about seafaring or overseas trade, and it was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that some observant
Hindus began avoiding overseas travel for purely religious reasons. Even then it was not
proscriptions on seafaring that proved prohibitive, but the complexity and cost of the ritual purification required after mingling with non-Hindus. Even if high-caste Hindus declined to go to sea, they had no qualms about investing in, and profiting from, overseas trade.

The
Laws of Manu
offer a fuller exposition of Hindu attitudes toward seafaring than does Kautilya’s
Arthasastra
. Probably written around the start of the common era, but reflecting a much older tradition, the
Laws
codify the “
social and religious duties tied to class and stage of life” that are an essential feature of Hinduism. They identify
the four main castes of priests (Brahmans), rulers, commoners, and servants, and make trade and moneylending the responsibility of commoners. There are no injunctions against overseas commerce, and maritime merchants are given a free hand to conduct their trade as they think best. While the king sets prices for most goods, those carried in long-distance sea trade are subject to a more laissez-faire approach: “When men who are expert in ocean transportation, and can calculate the time, place, and goods, establish an interest rate, that is the rate for the payment of that particular transaction.” Moreover, the
Laws of Manu
show that the king owned vessels which traders could rent, and they specify how fees were to be calculated for leasing
riverboats. At the same time, “there is no definite rule for (journeys) on the ocean.” With respect to accidents, the
Laws
distinguish between a crew’s negligence and acts of God: “If anything is broken in a boat through the fault of the boatmen, it should be paid for by the boatmen collectively, (each paying) his own share. This is the decision … when the boatmen are at fault on the water; there is no fine for (an accident that is) an act of the gods.” While acts of God are not unknown on rivers, this provision apparently applied to accidents at sea.

The
Arthasastra
and
Laws of Manu
presumably synthesize a body of customs and laws of navigation from various parts of
Chandragupta’s realm, and they survived in some form the breakup of the
Mauryan Empire in the 180s
BCE
. That they were compiled when they were reflects the growth of urban settlements and the expansion of trade in northern India, a process that began in the sixth century
BCE
. This period likewise saw the development of Jainism and Buddhism, religions derived but distinct from Hinduism and whose spread both encouraged and was encouraged by trade. Because of the extreme doctrine of
ahimsa
(noninjury to living things),
Jains were restricted in their occupations: raising animals for slaughter was obviously forbidden, but so was farming because it required pest control. Jains turned increasingly to commerce
for their livelihood, and Jainism became especially strong in Gujarat and the southern Indian kingdoms of
Pandya, Chola, and
Chera—all regions that have played a formative role in India’s long-distance sea trade. Reliant as they were on alms for funding their temples, Buddhists were sympathetic to merchants and moneylenders, but in addition they developed a pronounced missionary posture that carried them into Central Asia and
China via the
Hindu Kush and
Karakoram Mountains and east along the
silk road, or by ship across the Bay of Bengal to Southeast Asia and onward to China. Although it did not penetrate southern India as thoroughly as Jainism, Buddhism reached Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in 247
BCE
, when the third Mauryan king,
Ashoka, sent an embassy to the king. Sri Lanka subsequently became the preserve of Theravada
Buddhism and a place of pilgrimage and study for priests from throughout Asia.