The Indian Ocean

by Michael Pearson

  3 Savitri Chandra, 'Sea and Seafaring as Reflected in Hindi Literary Works during the 15th to 18th Centuries', in K.S. Mathew, ed., Studies in Maritime History, Pondicherry, Pondicherry University, 1990, pp. 84–91.

  4 Neil Philip, The Illustrated Book of Myths, Tales and Legends of the World, London, Dorling Kindersley, 1995, pp. 108–9.

  5 See Moti Lal Bhargava, Indian Ocean Strategies through the Ages, with Rare and Antique Maps, New Delhi, Reliance Publishing House, 1990, pp. 7–25; several articles in S.R. Rao, ed., Marine Archaeology of Indian Ocean Countries, Dona Paula, Goa, National Institute of Oceanography, 1988; and I. Kuntara Wiryamartana, 'The "Sea" in Old Javanese Literature', in V.J.H. Houben et al., eds, Looking in Odd Mirrors: the Java Sea, Leiden, University of Leiden, 1992, pp. 97–111.

  6 'The Birth of the Indian Ocean', Nature, 337, February 1999, pp. 506–7.

  7 Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1998, pp. 1–4.

  8 Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 2000.

  9 David Christian, '"Big History", Globalisation and Australia: Towards a More Inclusive Account of the Past', Proceedings of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2000, p. 145; P. Bellwood, 'From Bird's Head to Bird's Eye View: Long Term Structures and Trends in Indo-Pacific Prehistory', in J. Miedema, C. Ode and R.A.C. Dam, eds, Perspectives on the Bird's Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1998.

  10 Moira Tampoe, Maritime Trade between China and the West: An Archaeological Study of the Ceramics from Siraf (Persian Gulf), 8th to 15th centuries AD, Oxford, B.A.R., 1989, p. 1.

  11 Jacques-Yves Cousteau, The Living Sea, New York, Nick Lyons Books, 1963, pp. 179–80.

  12 Heyerdahl, Tigris, passim, and Basil Greenhill, Archaeology of the Boat: A New Introductory Survey, London, A & C Black, 1976, pp. 97–9.

  13 P. David Sentance, 'The Mtepe: The Origins and Longevity of an East African Craft', Great Circle, III, 1, 1981, pp. 1–9.

  14 Sir Thomas Bowrey, A Geographical Account of Countries Around the Bay of Bengal, Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, 1905, pp. 42–4.

  15 Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in India, Edinburgh, A. Constable, 1812, pp. 124, 127.

  16 Roderich Ptak, ed., J.V.G. Mills trans., The Overall Survey of the Star Raft by Fei Hsin, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1996, p. 57.

  17 George F. Hourani, revised and expanded by John Carswell, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Medieval Times, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1951, 1995, p. 129.

  18 Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 96–8; Graham Chandler, 'Traders of the Plain' [Indus Valley], Aramco World, September–October, 1999, pp. 35–42.

  19 Romila Thapar, 'Early Mediterranean Contacts with India: An Overview', in F. De Romanis and A. Tchernia, eds, Crossings, New Delhi, Manohar, 1997, p. 12.

  20 Mark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, pp. 28–30.

  21 Ibid., p. 9.

  22 Andre Tchernia, 'Winds and Coins', in De Romanis and Tchernia, eds, Crossings, pp. 250–60.

  23 H.P. Ray, 'Maritime Archaeology of the Indian Ocean: An Overview', in Himanshu Prabha Ray and Jean-Francois Salles, eds, Tradition and Archeology: Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi, Manohar, 1996, p. 2. For an exhaustive study of the date of the Periplus see Christian Robin, 'The Date of the Periplus', in De Romanis and Tchernia, eds, Crossings, pp. 41–65. Gerard Fussman, 'The Periplus and the Political History of India', in ibid., pp. 66–71 dates it to 40 CE.

  24 Warmington, quoted in Himanshu Prabha Ray, 'The Western Indian Ocean and the Early Maritime Links of the Indian Subcontinent', Indian Economic and Social History Review, 31, 1, 1994, p. 70.

  25 D.W. MacDowall, 'The Evidence of the Gazetteer of Roman Artefacts in India', in Ray and Salles, eds, Tradition and Archeology, p. 79.

  26 Hourani, Arab Seafaring, pp. 135–6.

  27 Basham, The Wonder, pp. 226–31.

  28 S.E. Sidebotham and W.Z.Wendrich, 'Berenike', Indian Ocean Review, December 1999, p. 16.

  29 Ananda Abeydeera, 'The Factual Description of a Sea Route to India and Ceylon by a Greek Master Mariner from Roman Egypt', in Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, XIX, 1996, pp. 200, 207.

  30 See R. Champakalakshmi, Trade Ideology and Urbanization: South India 300 BC to AD 1300, New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.

  31 R.P. Kangle, The Kautilya Arthasastra, Bombay, University of Bombay, 3 vols, 1965–72, II, pp. 162–4 for the text, and the gloss in III, p. 179.

  32 G.W.B. Huntingford, ed., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, London, Hakluyt, 1980, pp. 37, 103.

  33 Horton and Middleton, The Swahili, p. 31; S. Qudratullah Fatimi, 'In Search Of A Methodology For The History Of Muslim Navigation In The Indian Ocean', Islamic Quarterly [Great Britain], 20–2 (1–2), 1978, p. 45.

  34 A.M. Juma, 'The Swahili and the Mediterranean Worlds: Potteries of the Late Romen Period from Zanzibar', Antiquity, 70, 1996, pp. 148–54.

  35 Valeria Fiorani Piacentini, 'International Indian Ocean Routes and Gwadar Kuh-Batil Settlement in Makran', Nuova Rivista Storica, May–August 1988, p. 308 and passim, pp. 307–44; R.A. Donkin, Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl Fishing, Origins to the Age of Discovery, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1998, p. 95.

  36 Hourani, Arab Seafaring, pp. 40–9; Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China's Encounter with Africa, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1989, p. 3; K. Rajan, 'Early Maritime Activities of the Tamils', in Ray and Salles, eds, Tradition and Archeology, pp. 97–108.

  37 H.P. Ray, The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia, Delhi, New York, Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 190–1; Ian C. Glover, 'The Archaeological Evidence for Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia', in Julian Reade, ed., Indian Ocean in Antiquity, London, Kegan Paul, 1996, pp. 365–92. However, see also debunking comments by Monica L. Smith, 'The Dynamic Realm of the Indian Ocean: A Review', Asian Perspectives, 36, 2, Fall 1997, pp. 245–59.

  38 K.M. Panikkar, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History, London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1945, p. 29.

  39 Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Vol. I, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, respectively pp. 377, 366.

  40 Ibid., p. 158.

  41 Hourani, Arab Seafaring, p. 29; Romila Thapar, 'Early Mediterranean Contacts with India: An Overview', in De Romanis and Tchernia, eds, Crossings, p. 33.

  42 As described in the Asian Studies Association of Australia electronic Newsletter, June, 2001.

  43 Gunawardana in Satish Chandra, ed., The Indian Ocean: Explorations in History, Commerce and Politics, New Delhi, Sage, 1987, pp. 61, 77, and passim for a very useful overview. B. Arunachalam has published extensively on traditional Indian navigation. Useful summaries are 'Traditional Sea and Sky Wisdom of Indian Seamen and their Practical Application', in Ray and Salles, eds, Tradition and Archeology, pp. 261–81 and 'Indigenous Traditions of Indian Navigation with Special Reference to South India', in Mathew. ed., Studies in Maritime History, pp. 127–42.

  44 Lotika Varadarajan, 'Traditions of Indigenous Navigation in Gujarat', South Asia, III, 1, 1980, pp. 28–35.

  45 See two slightly different translations: Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press, 1961, p. 38, and F. Hirth and W.W. Rockhill, trans. and ed., Chau Ju-kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelth and Thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chi, St Petersburg, 1911, New York, Paragon Book Reprint Corp, 1965, pp. 27–8.

  46 Ian C. Glover, 'The Archaeological Evidence for Early Trade between India and Southeast Asia', in Reade, ed., Indian Ocean in Antiquity, pp. 365–92; Ian C. Glover, 'Recent Archaeological Evidence for Early Maritime Contacts between India and Southeast Asia', in Ray and Salles, eds, Tradition and Archeology, pp. 129–58. See also the critique
by Monica Smith, 'The Dynamic Realm', op. cit.

  47 Gunawardana in Chandra, ed., Indian Ocean, p. 69.

  48 Hermann Kulke, 'Rivalry and Competition in the Bay of Bengal in the Eleventh Century and its Bearing on Indian Ocean Studies', in Om Prakash and Denys Lombard, eds, Commerce and Culture in the Bay of Bengal, 1500–1800, New Delhi, Manohar, 1999, p. 24.

  49 Richard Pankhurst, 'Ethiopia across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean', Africa News Service, 17 May 1999.

  50 Ian Gillman and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Christians in Asia before 1500, Richmond, Curzon, 1999, p. 11.

  51 Hourani, Arab Seafaring, p. 149; for the earlier date Horton and Middleton, The Swahili, p. 27.

  52 Julian Reade, 'Evolution in Indian Ocean Studies', in Reade, ed., Indian Ocean in Antiquity, p. 20.

  53 Bellwood, 'From Bird's Head', op. cit.; Ben Finney, 'The Other One-Third of the Globe', Journal of World History, V, 2, 1994, pp. 273–97.

  54 Pierre-Yves Manguin, 'Southeast Asian Shipping in the Indian Ocean during the first millenium AD', in Ray and Salles, ed., Tradition and Archeology, p. 181 et seq.

  55 Roger Blench, 'The Ethnographic Evidence for Long-distance Contacts Between Oceania and East Africa', in Reade, ed., Indian Ocean in Antiquity, pp. 417–33.

  56 Manguin, op. cit.

  57 Mark Horton, '"Mare Nostrum" a new archaeology of the Indian Ocean?' Antiquity, 71, 1997, p. 749.

  4 Muslims in the Indian Ocean

  1 Quoted in Lamin Sanneh, 'Time, Space, and Prescriptive Marginality in Muslim Africa: Symbolic Action and Structural Change', in Philip Pomper et al., eds,. World History: Ideologies, Structure and Identities, Oxford, Blackwell, 1998, pp. 142–3.

  2 M. Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation, London, A.A. Knopf, 1930, XXX, p. 46; XVII, p. 66; XLV, p. 12.

  3 Quoted in Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Vol. I, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, p. 171.

  4 H.M.J. Maier, 'The Malays and the Sea, the Waves and the Java Sea', in V.J.H. Houben et al., eds, Looking in Odd Mirrors: The Java Sea, Leiden, University of Leiden, 1992, p. 4.

  5 For discussions of different types of dhows, see Edward Prados, 'Indian Ocean Littoral Maritime Evolution: The Case of the Yemeni huri and sanbuq', Mariner's Mirror, 83, 1997, pp. 185–98; Alan Villiers, Sons of Sinbad, New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1940, pp. 337–8.

  6 Apart from Villiers and Prados cited in the previous note, see works by the following listed in the bibliography: John Jewell, Clifford Hawkins, E.B. and C.P.M. Martin, and Richard LeBaron Bowen's two excellent ethnographic studies.

  7 Marco Polo, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, trans. and ed. Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, London, John Murray, 1921, 2 vols, I, p. 108.

  8 Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (1183–1185 AC), trans. R.J.C. Broadhurst, London, Jonathan Cape,1952, p. 65.

  9 Pierre-Yves Manguin, 'Late Mediaeval Asian Shipbuilding in the Indian Ocean: A Reappraisal', Moyen Orient & Océan Indien, II, 2, 1985, pp. 5–6; Ross Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986, pp. 110–11; Jeff Harris, 'The Dhow of Racing', Aramco World, 50, 3, May/June 1999, pp. 2–11.

  10 Quoted in Manguin, 'Late Mediaeval Asian Shipbuilding', p. 6.

  11 Sir John Mandeville, Mandeville's Travels, ed. M. Letts, London, Hakluyt, 1953, p. 118.

  12 Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, trans. H.A.R. Gibb, Cambridge, Hakluyt, 1958–94, 4 vols, IV, 827, pp. 797.

  13 Tim Severin, The Sinbad Voyage, London, Hutchinson, 1982, p. 40.

  14 Sir Thomas Bowrey, A Geographical Account of Countries Around the Bay of Bengal, Cambridge, Hakluyt, 1905, pp. 104–5.

  15 George F. Hourani, revised and expanded by John Carswell, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Medieval Times, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1951, 1995, pp. 91, 100.

  16 Hourani, Arab Seafaring, pp. 109–10; Harris, op. cit.; G.R. Tibbetts, Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean before the Coming of the Portuguese, London, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1971, pp. 47–63 for a detailed and technical discussion.

  17 See a very technical discussion by I.C. Campbell, 'The Lateen Sail in World History', Journal of World History, VI, 1995, pp. 1–23.

  18 John R. Stilgoe, Alongshore, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 228–31; Severin, Sinbad, p. 132.

  19 Tibbetts, Arab Navigation, pp. 59, 192–5 (the quotation from Ibn Majid is on p. 195); R.B. Serjeant, 'Yemeni Merchants and Trade in Yemen, 13th–16th Centuries', in Denys Lombard and Jean Aubin, eds, Marchands et hommes d'affairs asiatiques dans l'Océan Indien et la Mer de Chine 13e–20e siècles, Paris, Editions de l'Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1988, pp. 61–82.

  20 O.H.K. Spate, The Pacific since Magellan, Canberra, Australian National University Press, 1979–88, 3 vols, I, 40, pp. 242.

  21 Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India, Lisbon, Typ. da Academia real das sciencias, 1858–64, 4 vols, I, p. 787.

  22 Manguin, 'Late Mediaeval Asian Shipbuilding', pp. 9–12.

  23 Quoted in Anne Bulley, The Bombay Country Ships, 1790–1833, London, Curzon, 2000, p. 27.

  24 Duarte Barbosa, Livro, London, Hakluyt, 1918–21, 2 vols, II, p. 76.

  25 Quoted in Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405–33, New York, Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 44.

  26 Marco Polo, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, I, pp. 249–51.

  27 Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, IV, pp. 813–4. R. Ptak, 'China and Portugal at Sea: The Early Ming System and the Estado da India Compared', in Revista de Cultura, No. 13/14, 1991, p. 24 seems dubious that Chinese ships in the fifteenth century were really over 100 metres long. See also Ma Huan, The Overall Survey of the Ocean's Shores, trans. J.V.G. Mills, Cambridge, Hakluyt, 1970, pp. 303–10 and for comprehensive discussions obviously Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1954–, especially 1962, IV, part 1, and IV, part 3, and also Gang Deng, Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Development, c. 2100 BC–1900 AD, Westport, Greenwood Press, 1997.

  28 Manguin, 'Late Mediaeval Asian Shipbuilding', and Manguin, 'The Southeast Asian Ship: An Historical Approach', Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, XI, 2, Sept. 1980, pp. 266–76. For sceptical comments see Monica L. Smith, 'The Dynamic Realm of the Indian Ocean: A Review', Asian perspectives, 36, Fall 1997, pp. 245–59.

  29 Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, pp. 65, 69.

  30 Ibn Majid quoted in Tibbetts, Arab Navigation, pp. 197–203.

  31 Ibid., pp. 218–9.

  32 G.R. Tibbetts, 'The Role of Charts in Islamic Navigation in the Indian Ocean', in I.B. Harley and David Woodward, eds,The History of Cartography, II, book 1, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 256–62.

  33 Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, pp. 66–70

  34 Alfred Clark, 'Medieval Arab Navigation on the Indian Ocean: Latitude Determination', Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113, 1993, pp. 360–74. For Ibn Majid and his work see Tibbetts, Arab Navigation, passim, and Ibrahim Khoury, As-Sufaliyya, 'The Poem of Sofala,' by Ahmed ibn Magid Translated and Explained, Coimbra, Centro de Estudos da Cartográfia Antiga, 1983.

  35 Buzurg ibn Shahriyar, The Book of the Wonders of India, trans. and ed. G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, London, East–West Publications, 1981, pp. 27–8, 49–54.

  36 Paul Wheatley, The Golden Khersonese, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press, 1961, pp. 91–103.