ABSTRACT
This essay is an attempt to appreciate India’s role in the Indian Ocean prior to the arrival of the Portuguese at the turn of the fifteenth century. The Indian maritime scenario is to be presented here in a historical outline; in other words, what is placed here relates to certain aspects of the maritime history of the subcontinent before the arrival of the Europeans in Africa and Asia. Maritime studies, though having undoubted interrelations with oceanography, are, however, not merely an appendage to this important discipline within the earth sciences. A fundamental issue in maritime studies is to situate a given area in a well defined maritime space. Such a maritime space is not simply confined to a strict aquatic zone, but is inseparably linked up with the adjacent coast and its hinterland. Seen from this point of view, it would be futile to limit maritime studies merely to naval encounters, naval diplomacy and contracting naval treaties, though sometimes such spectacular events did capture the imaginations of the historian at sea. Enquiries into any ocean/sea cannot but recognise the importance of searching for the human face of a given maritime space. But contrary to popular perceptions, they should not be reduced to the study of sea-borne trade alone, although it is an integral part of maritime studies. No maritime region can hardly be examined in isolation; but its perusal can be effectively carried on by highlighting the unity between the sea and adjacent land, as Fernand Braudel’s seminal ideas on the history of the Mediterranean demonstrate. No less important is his stress on the connections between one maritime space and another. The Braudelian perception negates the image of the ocean/sea as a geographical barrier, but views it as a factor of communication, linkages and unity among diverse communities (Braudel 1972).
