The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

  Around 1350, Kertarajasa’s grandson Rajasanagara (also known as Hayam Wuruk) came to the throne. His long rule is remembered as the ‘golden age’ of the Majapahit empire but it was really his prime minister Gaja Mada who was the driving force. Under Gaja Mada’s guidance, the Majapahit established direct or indirect control over much of what is now Indonesia. It was perhaps inevitable that the Javans would come in conflict with the newly established Ming dynasty in China who had evicted the Mongols and were now actively expanding their zone of influence.

  The Chinese initially tried to establish independent relations with the smaller kingdoms of Sumatra, perhaps justifying it as a continuation of the old relationship between the Song and Sri Vijaya. The Majapahit, however, became alarmed when the Chinese sent an embassy to crown the ruler of Malayu in 1377. This was clear interference in the Majapahit sphere of influence, and would have been seen as an attempt to create an alternative power centre. The Ming ambassadors were diverted to Java and killed. This resulted in a distinct cooling of diplomatic relations, and trade between China and South East Asia declined.1 In fact, when the Ming emperor ordered his vassal, the Thai king of Ayutthaya, to inform the Majapahit about his displeasure at the decline in trade, the Javans responded by tightening their hold over the old Sri Vijaya capital of Palembang. This is the background to the great voyages of Admiral Zheng He.

  The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne

  At the beginning of the fifteenth century, a new Ming emperor came to the throne and took the title Yongle (meaning Lasting Joy). At the very beginning of his rule, he decided to fund a series of grand voyages meant to project China’s power in South East Asia and in the India Ocean rim. One cannot see them as voyages of exploration since Chinese ships had been visiting these parts for centuries. Rather, they were an attempt to display geopolitical reach and to establish a tributary system with the Ming at the apex.

  Between 1405 and 1433, the Chinese fleet would make seven voyages that would visit Sumatra, India, Sri Lanka, Oman and the eastern coast of Africa. No one who saw the fleet would have been left unimpressed. Leading the expedition were large junks called ‘treasure ships’ that had nine masts and were 400 feet long (i.e. 122 metres). To put this in context, Columbus’s flagship, Santa Maria, was only 85 feet long (i.e. 26 metres). They carried costly cargoes of porcelain, silk, lacquerware and other fine objects to be exchanged in trade or as gifts for local rulers. Accompanying the giant treasure ships were hundreds of smaller vessels including supply ships, water tankers, warships and so on. In total, as many as 27,000 sailors and soldiers would have been involved in each voyage.2

  The admiral who helmed these voyages was the unlikeliest person to lead such an expedition—a Muslim eunuch of Mongol origin called Zheng He who began life in landlocked Yunnan! He had been captured as a young boy when the Ming were evicting Mongols from the province and was castrated before being presented as a servant to a prince. A bond of trust must have developed between the two boys because when the prince became Emperor Yongle, he put the young eunuch in charge of the Treasure Fleet.

  The first fleet of 317 brightly painted ships set sail in the autumn of 1405 from Nanjing with a total crew of 27,000 men. It made its way through South East Asia and stopped at Java where Zheng He avoided any direct confrontation with the Majapahit. This was his first voyage and he probably wanted to gather information. The sheer size of his fleet was enough to awe the locals. He also avoided Palembang, the old capital of the Sri Vijaya, where a notorious Chinese pirate had established himself after evicting the Majapahit governor. The Treasure Fleet next made its way across to Sri Lanka. Zheng He noted the internal politics of the island but did not linger long before heading for the Indian port of Calicut. It had emerged as the largest port on India’s west coast after Muzeris had been destroyed by a flood in 1341. Here the Chinese spent several months trading their silks and porcelain for black pepper, pearls and other Indian goods. The fleet then headed back home. Off Sumatra, however, they engaged and destroyed the fleet of the Chinese pirate who had occupied Palembang. The survivors were taken back to China and executed.

  Except for this skirmish, the first voyage had been one of information gathering. From now, the Chinese would use the Treasure Fleet to move the chess pieces on the geopolitical landscape of the Indian Ocean. The second voyage set sail after only a few months. Its purpose was to return various ambassadors to their home countries but also to install a new ruler in Calicut.3 The ruler of Calicut, drawn from the matrilineal Nair warrior clan, was known as the Lord of the Seas or Samudrin (often misspelled as Zamorin). The Chinese records suggest that they succeeded in installing their candidate. Although Indian sources are less clear about Chinese involvement, we know that during this decade the Samudrins of Calicut expanded their power at the expense of rivals like Cochin (Kochi) and it is possible that Chinese support had something to do with it.

  It was also on the second voyage that the Treasure Fleet visited Thailand. In the early fifteenth century, the Chinese were looking to strengthen the Thai as a way to further weaken the declining empire of Angkor.

  The chronicler Ma Huan who accompanied the Treasure Fleet on its voyages has left us some amusing anecdotes about local social attitudes. He tells us that the Chinese envoys really enjoyed their Thai sojourn because the women, including married ones, were quite happy to eat, drink and sleep with them without restraint. In fact, the Chinese found that husbands were pleased when they slept with their wives as they took it as a compliment saying, ‘My wife is beautiful and the man from the Middle Kingdom is delighted with her.’ The mystery is how the ship captains managed to convince the sailors who went onshore to return to their ships.

  Ma Huan also writes that the Chinese were initially puzzled when they heard a gentle tinkling sound whenever upper-class Thai men walked about. They learned that there was a custom of inserting hollow tin and gold beads into their foreskin and scrotum. The hollow beads had tiny grains of sand that made the tinkling sound. Ma Huan wrote that it looked ‘liked a cluster of grapes’ and was ‘a most curious thing’. One can only be grateful that this custom died out and did not survive to become a modern fashion craze.

  Over the next few voyages, we can see that Zheng He became increasingly confident as he gained experience. His fleet sailed widely from Bengal to the Swahili coast of Africa and then to the port of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. He also intervened systematically in local political rivalries where the opportunity presented itself in order to place compliant rulers on the throne. For instance, when the admiral visited Sri Lanka during the third voyage, he found that the island was in a state of civil war. The Chinese would capture at least one of the claimants to the throne and take him back to Nanjing to meet the Ming emperor. It appears that the sacred Tooth Relic was also taken to China. Both would be sent back to Sri Lanka as part of a plan to ensure Chinese influence over the island. The Chinese would similarly intervene in a war of succession in the kingdom of Samudra in Sumatra. However, the intervention with the most far-reaching historical implications was the support for the new kingdom of Melaka (also spelled Malacca) as a counterweight to the Majapahit of Java.4

  The founder of Melaka was a prince called Parmeswara who claimed descent from the Sri Vijaya. He initially attempted to set up his base in Singapore but later decided to shift further north due to local rivalries and the continued fear of Javan attacks. The Chinese would provide him with systematic support from the very outset and we know that Parmeswara made at least one trip to China in order to personally pay obeisance to the Ming emperor. Interestingly, Melaka was now encouraged to convert to Islam. Although Zheng He and many of his captains were Muslim, this should be seen mainly as a geostrategic move to create a permanent opposition to those troublesome Hindus of Java. It was probably also intended to create a permanent schism within Indic civilization and prevent a future anti-Chinese geopolitical alliance. Whatever the original motivations, Melaka prospered under Chinese protection while
the Majapahit were steadily pushed back. This is the origin of the steady Islamization of South East Asia.

  Meanwhile, back in China, the Treasure Fleets caused great excitement when they returned with ambassadors, goods and stories from faraway lands. The items that attracted the most curiosity, however, were giraffes that were seen as the ‘qilin’, mythical beasts that are considered sacred by the Chinese. The appearance of a qilin was seen to herald an age of prosperity and poems were written dedicated to the emperor and the giraffes. Problems were brewing, however, for Zheng He. The Confucian mandarins were increasingly suspicious of the power being accumulated by the eunuch lobby. So after Yongle died in 1424, the mandarins would steadily undermine the navy which was controlled by the eunuchs. After one last voyage in 1431–33, the treasure ships were allowed to rot and the records of the voyages were deliberately suppressed.

  China would withdraw into an isolationism from which it would emerge only in the second half of the twentieth century. For a while it may have seemed that the Indian Ocean would revert to the Arabs but, as often happens in history, the flow of events took an unexpected turn due to the arrival of a completely new player—the Portuguese. Their arrival sped up the dissolution of an old order that was already crumbling.

  The End of an Era

  The voyages of the Treasure Fleet may have stopped after 1433, but they had set in motion a chain of events that would fundamentally change the dynamics of South East Asia. As already mentioned, the Chinese had helped Melaka emerge as a rival to the Majapahit empire. A Muslim alliance led by Melaka was soon encroaching into western Java and the empire would steadily lose control over its spice ports. Although the Majapahit would hold on to their heartlands in eastern Java till the end of the century, they were now clearly in decline. As the empire crumbled, many members of the Javan elite accepted Islam. Those who refused to convert, withdrew to the island of Bali in the early sixteenth century, where they have kept alive their culture to this day. Small Hindu communities have also survived in Java such as the Tenggerese who live in inaccessible villages in the volcanic highlands around Mount Bromo.5

  The kingdom of Angkor, meanwhile, was under pressure from incursions by the Thai. The Thai were originally from southern China (Yunnan/Guangxi) but slowly encroached into the northern fringes of the Khmer empire. By the middle of the fourteenth century, they had established a new capital at Ayutthaya (named after Ayodhya in India), not far from modern Bangkok. It is well worth a day trip although overrun by tourists. When I first visited the place in the early nineties, it still had a rustic feel and one could cycle alone among the rice paddies looking at semi-abandoned sites.

  With the tacit support of the Ming Treasure Fleet, the Thai would become increasingly aggressive and in 1431, they would sack Angkor. The great city would be abandoned although a much-reduced Khmer kingdom would survive. The Thai, however, would absorb many elements of the culture of Angkor. This is why much of what is now considered traditional Thai art and culture is of Khmer origin.

  Even as the Khmers were getting pushed aside by the Thai, their traditional Cham rivals were facing an existential threat. For centuries, the kingdom of Champa had covered the southern half of Vietnam just as the kingdom of Dai Viet (literally Great Viet) had covered northern Vietnam. When Zheng He was embarking on his voyages, the Ming were simultaneously invading Dai Viet. Although initially defeated, the Vietnamese kept up a guerrilla war that the Ming soon found too expensive to sustain. The Chinese were eventually squeezed out in 1428. The Viet spent the next couple of decades rebuilding their economy but in 1446 they invaded Champa and briefly held its capital. In 1471, they returned in even greater force. Records suggest that 60,000 died in a last stand and that 30,000 captives were carried away (including the royal family).6

  Thus ended the kingdom of Champa that had lasted for one and a half millennia. It has left behind many enigmatic temples strewn across southern Vietnam. Sadly the most important temple cluster in My Son was heavily damaged by American carpet bombing during the Vietnam War and, despite being designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, there is relatively little left to see. A small Cham community survives in Vietnam although many converted to Islam in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, the tiny Balamon–Cham community (numbering around 30,000) still preserves a form of ancient Shaivite Hinduism in remote villages in southern Vietnam. As we sipped strong local coffee at a Ho Chi Minh City cafe, Prof. Sakaya, himself a Cham Hindu, told me that it is their belief that when they die, the sacred bull Nandi comes to take their soul to the holy land of India.7

  Again, the question arises—why did these long-surviving Indianized kingdoms in South East Asia simultaneously collapse? Chinese intervention may have played a role but it is arguably not the full story. By studying tree rings, researchers have found evidence that severe droughts and floods may have caused the complex hydraulic networks of Angkor to collapse in the fifteenth century.8 Java and Champa were also rice-based societies and it is likely that they too suffered from the same climatic fluctuations. Thus, it is possible that nature had a role to play in the collapse of these kingdoms.

  Vasco’s Cannons

  One of the intriguing aspects of the medieval world is the success with which the Arabs blocked information about the Indian Ocean from reaching the Europeans. Despite the accounts of occasional European travellers like Marco Polo, there was so much misinformation around that it became easy for blatant charlatans like John Mandeville to thrive. Mandeville was an Englishman who left his country in 1322 and returned after thirty-four years claiming that he had been to China, India, Java and other places in the East. He then wrote a book of fantastical tales about one-eyed giants, women with dogs’ heads and two-headed geese. He also embellished the widely held medieval European belief that there was a powerful Christian king called Prester John in India who would be a willing ally against the Muslims. The Europeans lapped up these stories and Mandeville’s book was closely studied by scholars, explorers and kings.

  In the fifteenth century, some Europeans began to look for ways to break the Muslim stranglehold on trade with Asia. One option was to find a sea route to the Indies by sailing around Africa. The Portuguese took the lead and began to systematically sail down the west coast of Africa. In 1487, a captain called Bartholomew Diaz finally reached the southern tip of Africa. Most history books give the impression that the Portuguese then waited for a full decade before sending a fleet under Vasco da Gama to further explore the route. Given the importance attached by the Portuguese throne to this project, it is hardly likely that the voyage was casually postponed. Far from it, there is evidence to suggest that the Portuguese followed up Diaz’s discovery with a number of secret voyages to properly document the winds and currents.9 After all, the Portuguese were quite suspicious of a certain Christopher Columbus who seemed to be sniffing around for information.

  There was another reason why the Portuguese waited. King John II had dispatched two spies disguised as Moroccan merchants to make their way to the Indian Ocean through the Red Sea in order to gather information on what the Portuguese fleet should expect after they rounded Africa. The two spies—Pero da Covilha and Afonso de Paiva—made their way to Aden where they split. The former would criss-cross the Indian Ocean for two years collecting information on various ports and kingdoms. His Arabic must have been very convincing because he would face certain death if discovered. Paiva, meanwhile, made his way inland to Ethiopia in the hope of finding the mythical Christian king Prester John. He would have been disappointed by what he saw. The Ethiopians had been surrounded by the Arabs for centuries and had somehow survived in isolation by retreating into the highlands.

  After exploring the Indian Ocean, Covilha made it back to Aden and then to Cairo where he hoped to meet his companion. However, he soon realized that Paiva had died. He was preparing to return to Lisbon when he was contacted by two Jewish merchants carrying a secret message from King John II. The letter specifically asked for details on Prester John�
��s kingdom. Covilha, therefore, sent back a report on the Indian Ocean ports with the merchants and decided to explore Ethiopia himself. It appears that the spy was now addicted to his wandering life because he even made an unnecessary and risky detour to see Mecca for himself. When he finally reached Ethiopia, however, the dowager Queen Helena refused to let him leave as he had learned too much about the beleaguered kingdom’s defences. Instead he was given a local wife and an estate (although he had a wife and estate back in Portugal) and asked to settle down. Thirty years later, a Portuguese emissary would find Covilha living the life of an Ethiopian nobleman!

  After years of preparation, a Portuguese fleet under Vasco da Gama set sail in 1497 for India. Four years earlier, Columbus had returned from his voyage to the Americas but, thanks to all the intelligence gathering, the Portuguese seemed to have been quite confident that they were on the right track. Da Gama’s fleet consisted of three ships—San Gabriel, San Rafael, and the small caravel, Berrio (an additional store ship accompanied them part of the way). They had a combined crew of 180 carefully selected men. The ships were also armed with cannons which were not widely known in the Indian Ocean.

  The fleet set sail on 8 July and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope by early November. Although displaced from the rest of Africa by the Bantu, the Khoi-San were still the majority in the southern tip of the continent. They were not impressed by the newcomers and there was a skirmish in which Da Gama was slightly wounded by a spear. A very vindictive man, Da Gama would probably have wanted to exact revenge but there were more important things on his mind. After negotiating stormy waters off Natal, the ships continued north, past the delta of the Zambezi. Here the fleet began to come across Arab dhows and settlements—Vasco da Gama now knew he was in the Indian Ocean!