Indian maritime history

"The evidence for the Vedic Indians’ familiarity with sea and maritime navigation is so varied and so overwhelming that it is really impossible to dismiss it as a mere figment of imagination’"

"The Indian ships are much bigger than ours. Their bases are made of three boards .. [they] face formidable storms."

"Commerce on the sea is monopolized by the British even more than transport on land. The Hindus are not permitted to organize a merchant marine of their own; all Indian goods must be carried in British bottoms, as an additional strain on the starving nation's purse; and the building of ships, which once gave employment to thousands of Hindus, is prohibited."

"Akbar had an admiralty which supervised the building of ships and the regulation of ocean traffic; the ports of Bengal and Sindh were famous for shipbuilding, and did their work so well that the Sultan of Constantinople found it cheaper to have his vessels built there than in Alexandria; even the East India Company had many of its ships built in Bengal docks."

"Or their ships, for that matter. In the middle of the eighteenth century, John Grose noted that at Surat the Indian ship-building industry was very well established, indeed. “They built incomparably the best ships in the world for duration”, and of all sizes with a capacity of over a thousand tons. Their design appeared to him to be “a bit clumsy” but their durability soundly impressed him. They lasted “for a century”. Lord Grenville mentions, in this connection, a ship built at Surat which continued to navigate up to the Red Sea from 1702 when it is first mentioned in Dutch letters as “the old ship” up to the year 1770."

"The rich build ships in which they carry on commerce with foreign nations."

"It should be remembered that the Indian Ocean, including the entire coast of Africa, had been explored centuries ago by Indian navigators. Indian ships frequented the East African ports and certainly knew Madagascar. Whether they had rounded the Cape and sailed up the west coast is not known with any certainty."

"The Indian Ocean had from time immemorial been the scene of intense commercial trade. Indian ships had from the beginning of history sailed across the Arabian Sea up to the Red Sea ports and maintained intimate cultural and commercial connections with Egypt, Israel and other countries of the Near East. Long before Hippalus disclosed the secret of the monsoon to the Romans, Indian navigators had made use of these winds and sailed to Bab‑el‑Mandeb. To the east, Indian mariners had gone as far as Borneo and flourishing Indian colonies had existed for over 1,200 years in Malaya, the islands of Indonesia, in Cambodia, Champa and other areas of the coast. Indian ships from Quilon made regular journeys to the South China coast. A long tradition of maritime life was part of the history of Peninsular India..."

"The supremacy of India in the waters that washed her coast was unchallenged till the rise of Arab shipping under the early khalifs. But the Arabs and Hindus competed openly, and the idea of ‘sovereignty over the sea’ except in narrow straits was unknown to Asian conception. It is true that the Sri Vijaya Empire dominating the Straits of Malacca exercised control of shipping through that sea lane for two centuries, but there was no question at any time of any Asian power exercising or claiming the right to control traffic in open seas. It follows from this conception of the freedom of the seas that Indian rulers who maintained powerful navies like the Chola Emperors, or the Zamorins, used it only for the protection of the coast, for putting down piracy and, in case of war, for carrying and escorting troops across the seas."

"Some ships of the larger class have, besides (the cabins), to the number of thirteen bulkheads or divisions in the hold, formed of thick planks let into each other (incastrati, mortised or rabbeted). The object of these is to guard against accidents which may occasion the vessel to spring a leak, such as striking on a rock or receiving a stroke from a whale, a circumstance that not unfrequently occurs; for, when sailing at night, the motion through the waves causes a white foam that attracts the notice of the hungry animal. In expectation of meeting with food, it rushes violently to the spot, strikes the ship, and often forces in some part of the bottom. The water, running in at the place where the injury has been sustained, makes its way to the well which is always kept clear. The crew, upon discovering the situation of the leak, immediately remove the goods from the division affected by the water, which, in consequence of the boards being so well fitted, cannot pass from one division to another. They then repair the damage, and return the goods to the place in the hold from whence they had been taken. The ships are all double-planked; that is, they have a course of sheathing-boards laid over the planking in every part. These are caulked with oakum both withinside and without, and are fastened with iron nails. They are not coated with pitch, as the country does not produce that article, but the bottoms are smeared over with the following preparations: – The people take quick-lime and hemp, which latter they cut small, and with these, when pounded together, they mix oil procured from a certain tree, making of the whole a kind of unguent, which retains its viscous property more firmly, and is a better material than pitch."

"The maritime intercourse of India and China dates from a much earlier period, from about 680 B.C..... they arrived in vessels having prows shaped like the heads of birds or animals after the pattern specified in the Yukti Kalpataru (an ancient Sanskrit technological text) and exemplified in the ships and boats of old Indian arts."

"Abraham Parsons, a British traveller, described India’s ship- building prowess in late eighteenth century:Ships built at Bombay are not only as strong, but as handsome, are as well finished as ships built in any part of Europe; the timber and plank, of which they are built, so far exceeds any in Europe for durability that it is usual for ships to last fifty or sixty years; as a proof of which I am informed, that the ship called the Bombay grab, of twenty-four guns, (the second in size belonging to the Company’s marine) has been built more than sixty years, and is now a good and strong ship."

"The early Hindu astrologers are said to have used the magnet, in fixing the North and East, in laying foundations, and other religious ceremonies. The Hindu compass was an iron fish that floated in a vessel of oil and pointed to the North. The fact of this older Hindu compass seems placed beyond doubt by the Sanskrit word Maccha Yantra, or fish machine, which Molesworth gives as a name for the mariner's compass"."

"O Asvins, you saved Bhujyu (from drowning) in a deep sea where there was nothing to hold on, by lifting him up in a boat that had a hundred oars and sending him to his place. This was indeed a brave act of yours."

"As a ship across the river (or sea), Agni, take us across to safety (I.97.8).29"

"Agni will deliver us across all difficulties, as a ship across the river (or sea; I.99.1).30"

"Agni, destroyer of difficulties, deliver us across all danger as a ship across the river (or sea; V.5.9).31"

"When he was lost in the supportless, foundationless, ungraspable ocean, you put forth your strength, oh Ashwins. You bore Bhujyu home, mounted on a ship with a hundred oars (I.116.5).32"

"For three nights and three days, oh Ashwins, you carried Bhujyu with your swift birds. To the other shore of the wet ocean, with three vehicles with a hundred feet and six horses (I.116.4).33"

"With ships of the nature of the wind that travel through the atmosphere and keep the water away (I.116.3).34"

"Ashwins, you bore Bhujyu from the flooding ocean with straight moving bird- horses (I.117.14).35"

"Ashwins, you delivered Taugrya (Bhujyu) across the ocean (I.118.6).36"

"You carried Bhujyu, the son of Tugra, from the watery ocean by birds, through the air (VI.62.6).37"

"Ashwins, Bhujyu cast in the ocean, you bore across the floods with your unfailing horses (VII.69.7).38"

"When the son of Tugra served you, abandoned in the sea, then with wings your vehicle flew (VIII.5.22)."

"Indra, you delivered across the sea, Turvasha and Yadu to safety (1.174.9).39"

"Deliver us across all difficulties, oh Universal Gods, as ships across the waters (VIII.83.3).40"

"Oh Divine Varuna, guide this hymn of your worshipper with wisdom and skill, by it may we cross over all difficulties- may we mount it as a saving ship (VIII.42.3).4'"

"Soma, deliver us as a ship across the river (or sea; IX.70.10).42"

"The ships of truth have delivered the righteous. Varuna takes us across the great ocean (IX.73.1,3).43"

"Those who do not have the power to ascend the sacrificial ship trembling fall into calamity (X.44.6).44"

"At dawn, the new vehicle is employed. With four yokes, three whips, seven rays and ten oars, human and winning the light, it should be hastened with wishes and thoughts (1I.18.1)."

"Come with the ship of our thoughts to take us to the other shore, Ashwins, employ your vehicle. Your oar that is as wide as Heaven, your vehicle in the ford of the rivers by thought the drops of Soma are employed (I.46.7-8).43"

"Pushan, your ships that are within the sea, golden in the atmosphere which travel, by them you go on the embassy of the Sun, made by love, desiring glory (VI.58.3).46"

"When, oh Ashwins, you cross the ocean, men bring you fruits and delights (V.73.8).47"

"Heaven and Earth, the incomparable good protector, the Goddess Aditi who gives protection and guidance, may we ascend the Divine ship, free of sin, that has good oars which does not sink, to happiness.... Auspicious be our paths along the shores, auspicious in the convergence of the waters that bear the light of Heaven (X.63.10, 15)."

"Agni, give us a ship for our vehicle and house, with constant oars and quarters, which can take across our heroes and benefactors and our people to safety (I.140.12).53"

"The Sun mounted the luminous ocean, having yoked his straight-backed horses. The wise have led him like a ship through the water. The Waters, listening, have come here. We hold in the waters your vessel (or thought) that wins the light, by which the seers of the nine rays crossed over the ten months. By this vessel may we gain the protection of the Gods, by this vessel may we cross over all narrowness (V.45.10-11)."

"May the Divine One-footed Goat give us peace, peaceful be the Dragon of the Depths, peaceful the Ocean. May the Son of the Waters who is a ship be peaceful to us (VII.35.13).64"

"Ancient Tamil literature and the Greek and Roman authors prove that in the first two centuries of the Christian era the ports on the Coromandel or Cholamandal coast enjoyed the benefits of active commerce with both East and West. The Chola fleets.....uncrossed the Indian ocean to the islands of the Malaya Archipelago."

"In Les Hindous, Solvyns, after introducing about 40 sketches of boats and river vessels used in the Indian north in the 1790s, observed that “the English, attentive to everything which related to naval architecture, have borrowed from the Hindoos many improvements which they have adapted with success to their own shipping”."