The Indian Ocean Read online

  Given this early association with the sea, it is quite fitting that the closest living relative of the long-extinct fish, the rhipidistia, which is the ancestor of all land vertebrate animals, was found by Jacques Cousteau off the Comoro Islands. This is the so-called 'living fossil' fish, the coelacanth, which is the world's oldest known unchanged fish species, with a physique identical to fossil coelacanths in rocks dating back 350 million years. These antique fish average 100 lbs, and are caught in depths from 500 to 1300 feet. It is a powerful carnivore with hard scales and limb-like fins. They were considered extinct, but then one was caught off the east coast of Africa, and later it turned out the Comoro Islanders fished them regularly.11

  Archaeology has told us a little about the earliest boats in the Indian Ocean. In this and the next chapter we are dealing mostly with ships north of about 10° S: only when Europeans opened the Cape route, and later a direct passage from the Cape to Western Australia and then up to Indonesia, did the lower half of the ocean see much traffic. The earliest boats were canoes made of reeds, though not the papyrus of Egypt, and are still to be found in the marsh areas of the Tigris-Euphrates delta. In this area they are made of the berdi reed. Reeds are bundled together, and then these bundles are tied together to make a ship. There is some debate over whether or not they were coated with asphalt to make them more water tight. Many reed boats got their buoyancy only from the sum total of the buoyancy of the materials they were made of, and so usually sat very low in the water. Thor Heyerdahl built a large one, some 60 feet long, and taking a crew of about twelve. He found it laborious indeed to sail.12

  It is a long step from reed boats to wooden boats built to be watertight, gaining their buoyancy from enclosed air. Wooden boats go back very far, to the time of the Indus Valley civilisation some 5,000 years ago and no doubt much earlier again. It seems that while the Indus Valley civilisation had wooden boats, the Sumerians had only reed ones, which then would be inherently inferior.13 With the coming of Islam we have much more detailed accounts of ship construction, types, navigation and so on. For the period before this we work mostly on the assumption that long distance ships were of the same type as the famous dhows, which we will describe in detail in the next chapter: that is, they used no nails, were constructed of Indian teak, and by using a lateen sail could sail close into the wind.

  We can assume that the primitive coastal craft still found around the shores of the ocean go back to far antiquity. An early European account by Sir Thomas Bowrey gives a vivid account of millennium-old fishing craft, the mukkuvar: they

  are built very Sleight, haveinge no timbers in them, Save thafts [that is, thwarts] to hold their Sides togeather. Theire planke are very broad and thinne, Sowed togeather with Cayre, beinge flatt bottomed and every way much deformed.... They are Soe Sleightly built for conveniencies sake, and realy are most proper for this Coast; for, all along the Shore, the Sea runneth high and breaketh, to which they doe buckle and alsoe to the ground when they Strike. They are called Massoolas. . . . When they goe on fishinge, they are ready with very Small Ones of the like kind, that will carry but 4, 3, 2, or one man onely, and upon these Sad things, they will boldly adventure [out] of sight of the Shore, but indeed they Swimme (in general) as naturaly as Spanyall dogs. I have often Seen them one leage or more off Shore, when the Westerly winds have blowne very hard, which is right off, soe that they cold by noe means paddle any nearer in, and they have made Sleight of it, onely let fall theire line with a Stone fast thereto, and let the Cattaraman ride by it, (for such are theire Anchors) and they Swimme on Shore both against wind and Sea.

  Bowrey then goes on to tell the story of a man who got far out to sea, and took four days to swim and drift back to shore.14

  In more recent times such boats were also used as lighters, tending larger ships held off the coast by the high surf of the area. Mrs Graham in 1810 described them: 'The boats used for crossing the surf are large and light, made of very thin planks sewed together, with straw in the seams, for caulking would make them too stiff, and the great object is, that they should be flexible, and give to the water like leather, otherwise they would be dashed to pieces.' She also described the ubiquitous catamarans of the southeast Indian coast. In 1810 she

  walked to the beach to see the catamarans of this coast; they are formed of two light logs of wood lashed together, with a small piece inserted between them at one end, to serve as a stem-piece; they are always unlashed, and laid to dry in the sun when they come out of the water, as dryness is essential to their lightness and buoyancy; when ready for the water, they hold two men with their paddles, who launch themselves through the surf to fish....15

  A brief account from Sumatra in the early fifteenth century gives the same impression: 'The lower classes make a living by catching fish with nets. In the morning they take their boats which are made from single tree-trunks, raise the sails, and go out to sea; in the evening, they return with the boats.'16

  The rise of early civilisations in the Tigris-Euphrates area, and in northwest India, that is those of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, had profound effects for trade, including that by sea. We can now begin to write about relatively routine and organised trade using the Indian Ocean as a highway. Indeed, it is clear that the main economic connections between these two civilisations was by sea, for the land route was and is formidably difficult. For the first time coastal dwellers lived in cities where there was more differentiation amongst the inhabitants, and hence a need for both practical and luxury goods from far afield. There was trade with the other of the three earliest civilisations, in Egypt, from both these Indian Ocean ones, but our main concern is with exchange between the two, which may have begun as early as 3000 BCE. What we know about the Indus Valley Civilisation is based almost entirely on archaeological investigations, given that the script, if this is what the hieroglyphics are, has yet to be deciphered. In the case of Sumer, the famous tablets provide some good information.

  Now that we have some details we find the first occurrence of an irony, one which continues through most of the history of the Indian Ocean. The core or focus or fulcrum or centre of gravity of Indian Ocean trade and travel was always India, as we will have occasion to notice frequently as we progress. Yet through most of history maritime trade was, for India, optional rather than necessary, for the subcontinent was until very recent times self-sufficient in all basic needs. Trade by sea then was discretionary, and this in turn may explain why the sea has always been on the periphery of Indian consciousness, at least as compared with several other areas in the Indian Ocean, let alone such nautical places as England or coastal Europe in general.

  The main port associated with the Indus Valley Civilisation was Lothal, in the Gulf of Cambay, though there were others in the Rann of Kutch and in Oman which also connected India with Dilmun, the famed port at Bahrain in the Gulf, and with Mesopotamia, especially the city of Ur.17 Civilisation in Mesopotamia was located on a delta. The area had no rocks or minerals or even suitable timber. Consequently trade was much more essential for Mesopotamia than it was for the Indus Valley Civilisation. The latter had all the raw materials it needed, so that for them trade was discretionary. It was undertaken in part to get new markets, and in part to bring back exotica. Mesopotamia imported rarities from India, and also necessities, such as Indian teak. Other goods originating from India have been found in the royal cemetery of Ur dating from 2600–2500 BCE, such as carnelian beads. Later Sargon of Akkad boasted of trade with Dilmun (Bahrain), Magan (Makran and Oman) and Meluhha (Indus Valley Civilisation area). Goods passing from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia at this time included hard woods, tin or lead, copper, gold, silver, carnelian, shell, pearls and ivory, and animals such as red dogs, cats, peacocks and monkeys. Indus Valley Civilisation weights and seals have been found in Mesopotamia.18

  Other evidence also points to sea trade being much more central for the cities in the Tigris-Euphrates valley than for the Indus Valley Civilisation. Sumeri
an tables not only mention trade goods, but also speak of other maritime matters, such as kings and merchants going overseas, lists of cargoes, and even shipwrecks and other maritime disasters. Even if we cannot read the Indus Valley script, we can assume that its leaders, whoever they may have been, showed much less concern with the sea.

  The fragmentary evidence outlined here deals mostly with long-distance, glamorous, trade. Yet throughout this book we will have to remember that unsung, and unrecorded, coastal trade was also present, indeed most of the time was far more important than the long-distance trade catering to the needs of the elite which is privileged in almost all records. Trade in necessities is hard to document, for such staples as foodstuffs and cloths leave no archaeological trace. Yet it is clear that there was quite extensive sea trade within the Indus Valley Civilisation, from for example the area at the mouth of the Indus river to Lothal. Romila Thapar, writing of trade between India and Mesopotamia from 3000 BCE, pointed out that many small ships 'tramped from port to port and were travelling bazaars, largely covering the more confined circuits. Such a low profile trade continues to the present.'19 This coastal trade occurred all around the margins of the Indian Ocean. For example, there were contacts along the Swahili coast, between Somalia and the Mozambique channel, well back in the first millennium BCE. In this period, and indeed throughout history, the two terms which best describe Indian Ocean trade are periplus, which means a coastal voyage, and cabotage, or tramping.

  Another sector of the Indian Ocean where we know that early trade flourished was from Egypt down the Red Sea, but possibly going no further. There is evidence of trade down the Red Sea as far as the main centre of Punt, on the African side, as early as 5000 BCE. However, from around the beginning of the first millennium BCE it seems that long distance trade in the areas we have just described declined. One explanation for this may be that several large states, which generated a demand for the luxuries which were the only items worth trading over long distances, declined around this time. Coastal trade continued, but longer distance trade seems to have revived only in the last three centuries before the beginning of the Common Era.20

  Some older accounts tried to show that a revival of long-distance trade later in the first millennium BCE was due to the arrival of external traders, first Greeks and then Romans. (We must note in passing that neither of these descriptors are very precise. Very many people of very diverse ethnic backgrounds were included in these two broad categories.) Indeed, even the 'discovery' of the monsoon winds, a knowledge of which was so vital for making possible extended direct sailings, used to be attributed to a Greek sailor, Hippalus. To the contrary, it is now obvious that the essentials of the system we outlined in the previous chapter were known to sailors from at least the middle of the Bronze Age (3000–1000 BCE).21 Even if we lack hard evidence of their use so early, certainly the direct passage from the Red Sea mouth to India was being sailed in the second half of the second century, or even in the third century BCE, by Indian and Arab sailors.22

  As to the influence of Greek and Roman sailors and traders, we know much more about them because of the records, albeit fragmentary, that they have left. Archaeological work can flesh out these literary accounts, and they show that neither Greeks nor Romans innovated; rather they participated in existing complex trade networks in the Indian Ocean. As one example of this sort of supplementation, the famous handbook, the Periplus, of the mid first century CE, says nothing about trade in the Gulf, but archaeology shows it was well integrated in Indian Ocean trade by this time, continuing or reviving connections dating back three millennia.23

  The older, very Eurocentric, view was that 'the moving force from first to last came from the West, the little-changing people of the East allowed the West to find them out.'24 Romans dominated the trade of the western Indian Ocean, there were Roman colonies in India, notably at Arikamedu in Coromandel. The last claim is based on discoveries of many Roman coins there by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who failed to consider how the coins actually got there. Not for the first or last time, we need to know how Roman, or for that matter Chinese, goods got to where they have been found by archaeologists. Most of the time the Chinese, or the Romans, were responsible only for the first part of the travels of these goods. This is the well-known phenomenon of relay trade, where goods exchange hands many times before they stop travelling, and centuries later are dug up. Even some particular products have been misassigned. It once was thought that Red Polished Ware was Roman, so when we found it in India it showed contact with Rome. But Red Polished Ware was produced in Gujarat also.25

  This is not to deny that there was extensive trade contact with the eastern Mediterranean. The first Greek captain in the Arabian Sea was Scylax of Caryanda, around 510 BCE, who on the orders of Darius I (521–466 BCE) sailed from the mouth of the Indus to the Gulf of Suez. Later Alexander sent off Nearchus of Crete (326–325 BCE) to sail from the Indus to the Gulf, where he provided an early account of pearl fishing. Greek activity around the time of Alexander extended past the Gulf to Broach in western India, and also around the coast of Oman. One could say that these were the first Europeans to sail in the Indian Ocean, but this sort of distinction is hardly useful. Better to see these people, and many others, travelling within an area called Eurasia. This area extends from the eastern Mediterranean down the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, and in human terms provides a much better demarcator than the conventional and misleading separation between 'Europe' and 'Asia'.

  The anonymous author of the famous Periplus, dating from about the middle of the first century BCE, operated from the west coast of the Red Sea and went at least as far as Malabar. He travelled by the direct passage straight across; by this time this route had been sailed for some centuries. Most likely Indian or Arab sailors instructed Greeks and Romans in its use. Roman trade is also notable in the Indus Valley area long after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation, where traders, not necessarily or even mostly from 'Rome', imported manufactures like silver plate, glass vessels and wine, and took off goods even from Afghanistan and China. There have been other Roman finds at Kolhapur, at Begram, north of Kabul, and of course at Arikamedu in Coromandel.26 However, it could be that much trade which has been identified as Roman was really Greek, as indicated maybe by the many Peripluses, which are of course Greek.

  While the old notion of a trade dominated by Romans is certainly incorrect, this is not to deny that there were extensive connections, regardless of who was involved. What is interesting, as showing a pattern which continued until very recent times, is the way India exported much, but took in little except precious metals, as writers in Rome at the time pointed out and objected to. In return for Mediterranean bullion, India sent a vast variety of people and goods. These included spices, perfumes, jewels, textiles, ivory, and basic products like rice, sugar and ghee, and dyes like lac and indigo. Indian iron was considered to be very hard and pure. Exotic live animals arrived for the circuses, or to use as pets. Most of these goods had passed through many hands before they reached Rome, but some Indian people did make it that far, though most of these were specialists rather than traders. Mahouts often went with their elephants to Rome, along with Indian fortune tellers, conjurers and prostitutes.27

  Contrary then to foreign dominance, a more correct picture would see India acting as fulcrum for a very widespread trade, in which many different routes were sailed, and many different people participated, including Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs and Indians. An early centre linking trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean was Berenike, an Egyptian port on the west coast of the Red Sea. It was founded in the third century BCE, and was abandoned some time after the sixth century CE. This ancient port city had an extensive trade with India. Even the preliminary excavation done so far by teams from Leiden University and the University of Delaware has found seeds, peppercorns, bamboo, glass and stone beads, coconut husks, teak wood, textiles, sail cloth and pottery dating back to a century either side of the beginning of
the Common Era. There is a common Indian source for cloth found at Berenike and along the Silk Road to China. Berenike, then, was part of a very elaborate trade network.28

  Two other ports flourished around the beginning of the Common Era. The first was Hormos, in the Red Sea, from which, so Strabo tells us, up to 120 vessels sailed each year to India. By this time at least, long-distance sailing was routine, covering this long passage of close to 3,000 nautical miles direct. The second, though there no doubt were many others, was Barygaza, in the Gulf of Cambay on the Narmada river. This great centre was, like all ports in this treacherous Gulf, difficult of access, so that local fishermen were appointed to go up the coast and guide merchant ships down the coast and into and up the estuary.29

  Much of this data confirms the centrality of India in the whole trading system. In these centuries either side of the beginning of the Common Era the rise of centralised states in north India fostered trade, as also did the important Buddhist sangha, which provided a certain identity and cohesiveness for trading groups. We are assuming that there is a connection between centralised states and an increase in trade, the notion being that large states produce more demand for the luxuries which were, given constraints of technology, the main items which it was cost effective to carry over long distances.