ANCIENT INDIAN MARITIME LINKAGES WITH SOUTH-EAST ASIAN NATIONS

ANCIENT INDIAN MARITIME LINKAGES WITH SOUTH-EAST ASIAN NATIONS

1. Navigation in the seas of the North Indian Ocean is as old as the river valley civilisations in the adjacent coastal areas of Asia. India located centrally in North Indian Ocean had a lion’s share of early maritime relations. Buddhist Jataka tales and Kathasarit Sagara talk of coastal sea links between Gujarat and Srilanka on one hand and across the sea voyages in the Bay of Bengal and beyond.

2. The Mauryas and later the Guptas are believed to have built a navy. The Kalingas, after the invasion of Ashoka, had set on an emigration voyage across the Bay of Bengal to Bali Island, of a sizeable number of their people. The Mauryan voyage from the Bengal port of Tamralipti to Srilanka in the Ashokan days is a historically recorded fact. No less than six cultural and trade emissaries reached the Chinese coasts across the seas from the South of India.

3. The Vedas, Buddhist Jatakas, Sanskrit, Pali and Persian literature, Indian folklore and mythology and even the Old Testament bear testimony to the fact that as far back as the days of Mohen-jo-Daro, Lothal and Harappa (3000 to 2000 B.C), i.e., the Indus Valley Civilisation, there was considerable maritime activity between India and countries in Africa, Southern Europe, Western Asia and the Far East. Seals and Potsherd portraying anchors and tools and kitchen implements made of coral and mussel shell have been found at these places and Java, Sumatra, Indo-China, Sri Lanka and Egypt.

4. This fact is further borne out by the writings of foreign travelers and historians-Chinese, Arabic and Persian – which contain observations on Indian subjects and Indian and foreign art and literature- English, Greek, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Malay, Thai, Burmese and Sinhalese. Some of the little known facts about the extent of commercial and cultural influence of India and sea-borne trade using ships built in India during the Hindu period (pre-Christian era to the middle of the 15th century) are :

• The Matsya Yantra (the fish machine), an iron fish floating on oil pointing to the north serving as a primitive compass was used by Indian sea-farers for several millennia (Matsya was the first incarnation of Lord Vishnu).
• The names of some of the places in Southern and Southeast Asia such as Socotra which is a derivative of Sukhadhara and Sri Lanka which originally was Swarna Alankara.
• The similarity between the Thai and Oriya scripts due to the long Kalinga influence on Thailand.
• The scriptures in a Buddhist temple in Japan which are recited by the monks every morning even today being in the 6th century A.D Bengali script.
• The transfer by sea of the weary, tired and demoralized army of Alexander the Great from the mouth of the Indus to the shores of the Persian Gulf in 323 B.C in about 800 Indian built sailing vessels.

5. During this period, while the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean were used mainly for purposes of maritime trade, the Bay of Bengal provided a high-way for the countries on the Eastern sea-board to embark on proselytising, cultural and colonising missions to Sri Lanka and countries as far as the East Indies and Japan.

6. During this period, considerable maritime activity took place in the waters around India. As described by Megasthenes, the royal shipyards of the Mauryas built seagoing ships of various classes. The War office of Emperor Chandragupta had, as one of his six boards, a Nav Parishad (Board of Admiralty) which controlled national shipbuilding. During the days of Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century B.C., his sister, Princess Sanghamitra sailed from Tamralipta in Bengal to Srilanka on her historic mission of spreading Buddhism there. Between 200 B.C and A.D 250, the Andhras carried out maritime trade with Western Asia, Greece, Rome, Egypt, China and some other Eastern countries and had even set up embassies in some of these countries. Larger sailing vessels built by the Cholas, Pandyas and the Keralas of South India and the Kalingas of Orissa were used for trade, passenger traffic and naval warfare. It is a fact of history that during the first decade of the seventh century, a ruler of Gujarat who was faced with defeat at the hands of his enemy, sent his son with thousands of followers comprising cultivators, artisans, warriors, physicians and writers in over 100 vessels to Java where they laid the foundation of a new civilisation whose contribution to the world is the temple and sculptures of Borobudur.

7. That oceanic navigation was well advanced during the earlier centuries of the Christian era is further borne out by the writings of the celebrated Chinese monk, Fa Hien who came to India overland to study Biddhism at Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Varanasi in A.D. 413. On his way back to his home land he sailed from Tamralipta in Bengal and 14 days later reached Sri Lanka where he embarked for Java and called at the Nicobars before passing through the Straits of Malacca to reach the Pacific.

8. In April A.D 800, as described in the 199th Chapter of the Japanese document Ruijukokushi, an Indian was cast up on the shores of Japan and some seeds of the cotton-plant, so far unknown to that country, were found on his ship and sown in the province of Kii, Awaji, Jyo, Tosa and Kyushu. Thus cotton was introduced into Japan.

9. The Cholas (985-1054 A.D) maintained a strong naval fleet on the Coromandel Coast. In 1007 A.D., the Cholas launched an expedition against the Sri Vijayas, who at that time ruled the Malayan Peninsula, Java, Sumatra and some neighbouring islands and the sea areas contiguous to them, and defeated them to establish Chola power in the Malayan Peninsula.

10. Indian supremacy over the Eastern waters reached its zenith during the period of 5th to 12th centuries when the Sri Vijaya Empire ruled the entire sea area between India’s eastern seaboard and the Far East. The Sri Vijayas’ cultural and colonising expedition took them to such far-flung areas as Sumatra, Burma, the Malayan Peninsula, Java, Thailand and Indo-China. Sri Vijaya put down piracy, attracted Indian, Arab and Chinese merchants to its ports where excellent harbour facilities were available. Every ship passing the Straits of Sunda and Malacca was obliged to pay a toll. Besides spreading Hindu culture, they maintained regular political and commercial intercourse with the Cholas, Pandyas and Keralas. As a result of jealousy between the Cholas, the Tamil kings and the Sri Vijayas, a series of sea battles were fought between their navies towards the end of the 10th century A.D resulting in the weakening of these empires and opening the way for Arab supremacy in the region. These Arabs, however, became great intermediaries of maritime commercial intercourse between India and the West (Europe & West Asia).

INDIANISED KINGDOMS OF THE FAR EAST

11. In the early centuries of the Christian era South Indian kingdoms of Chre, Pandya and Chola were known for their maritime enterprises in the Eastern direction. The Tamil kings became prosperous and encouraged seaborne trade by developing harbours and providing quarters and warehouses for foreign traders and sailors. There was competition among the South Indian kings for the gains by this trade, Sri Lanka being another rival. Among the South Indian ports which traded actively with South East Asia were Muzuris (Cranganore), Poduca (Pondicherry), and Sopatma (Markanam). In the North Tamralipta (Tamluk) at the mouth of the Ganges and Barygaza (Gujarat) were ports from which Indian influence reached out to the far-east. The Ramayana and Mahabharata, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Sanskrit language and Hindu mythology, temple architecture and the Indian way of life became part of Far-Eastern culture.

12. Successive waves of Indian emigrants brought about major political and cultural changes in South East Asia. In the first century AD, Indians, attracted by trade and gains, traveled to these regions by land and sea. After setting up trading posts, they took advantage of the mutual conflicts of local rulers to established Indianised kingdoms. Between the first and fourth century AD the first wave of emigration set up Indian kingdoms in Malaya, Champa and Funan. The second wave (4th to 7th century) spread Indian culture and religion (both Hinduism and Buddhism) over a wider area. The first Indian ruler of Funan in Indo-China, according to Chinese accounts was “Kaundinya”, which is a Hindu Brahmin Gotra name and not the real name of the king. He introduced a modern irrigation system, drained the marshes, encouraged agriculture and trade and created a strong Army and Navy. Sanskrit was the language of culture. Hinduism and Buddhism co-existed peacefully. Under Indian kings Funan grew into an important commercial centre visited by merchants from China, India and Arabia.

13. These Indian immigrants consisted of traders, soldiers, Hindu and Buddhist priests, scholars, artisans and craftsmen. Starting with Indianised kingdoms in Malaya peninsula they pushed forward farther to Thailand, Champa and Funan in the following centuries.

14. The Indianised kingdoms of the Far East disintegrated and declined in the middle of the 14th century and went on till the seizure of Malacca by the Portuguese in 1511. Angkor was abandoned in the middle of the 15th century. The final abandonment of Sri Vijaya came in 1471 and Java ceased to exist as a separate kingdom, around 1350, Sumatra followed suit. With the increased navigation of the Arabs, Islam became a strong influence. The near total absence of Indian political relations with these regions and the weakening of Indian maritime contacts left the native population to recover their national and racial identity. They retained some of the acceptable elements of Indian culture. The original immigrant Indian population, necessarily a small number, merged with the large mass of local population and lost their separate identity, if ever they had maintained one. The fact to remember is that these Indian kingdoms were not Indian colonies politically subordinate or linked to the mother country, but independent local kingdoms. When our links with these regions were cut, base forgot our former connections and lost even the memory of our grand overseas ventures.

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