ABSTRACT
Inhabitants of the Sindhu (Indus) Valley Civilization in the 2600 to 1900 Before Current Era period were seafarers. They traded with Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf region, and Egypt in coastal vessels on a sea they called the Sindhu – a Sanskrit word for sea. Since early 16th century Current Era, the Sindhu Mahasagar is known as the Indian Ocean, named for India whose seafarers and traders united cultures on the Ocean’s littoral as well as in interior regions of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The seafarers and maritime traders traveling in the Indian Ocean experienced seasonal reversals of winds and navigated to benefit from the winds in their voyages across and along the Ocean littoral. They called the wind reversals mausam – an Arabic word meaning season. A degenerate form of mausam became monsoon as the semi-annual wind reversal is known today.
