ABSTRACT
Taking off from Michael Pearson’s work on secondary ports and on his ideas of connectivities of foreland and hinterland, this paper examines notions of space and territoriality as traced through mainly inscriptional sources. The focus is, therefore, first on the notion of space, as seen in Chola times, especially the uses of the notion of tinai; thereafter, the paper moves northwards, to the Andhra Pradesh coast, to focus on a single port, Motupalli, and the ways in which the spaces are linked to this place and to the networks across the Bay of Bengal.
