ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Indian shipbuilding and navigation and Portuguese maritime activities in India in the sixteenth century in a comparative approach. Interactions took place mostly in the littoral of peninsular India with a view to extracting maximum surplus produce of spices and black gold at the cheapest rate possible to maximize the profit under the ideology of mercantilism. Hence the study is addressed chiefly to the seafront of peninsular India with special emphasis on the Malabar Coast. The chapter provides the history of shipbuilding and navigation in India before she came in to contact with the Europeans especially the Portuguese will definitely go a long way in making ourselves conscious of Indian heritage and its worth. The first voyage of Vasco da Gama and the anonymous narrative of the voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral which too shed some light on Portuguese shipping. The chapter provides an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
