By Capt. A.K. Bansal
Indian Teakwood ships were stitched with coir yarn. Indians have been competent mariners for over 5 thousand years. They first sailed in primitive rafts, then on Katamarans made with logs or planks bound together with coir yarn. Such rafts are still in use along our coast.
Indian maritime history began when inhabitants of the Indus Valley initiated maritime trading contact with Mesopotamia and the region around the Indus river began to show a visible increase in the length and frequency of maritime voyages. Optimum conditions for viable long-distance voyages existed by 2900 BC.
Mesopotamian inscriptions indicate that Indian traders from the Indus Valley, carrying copper, hardwoods, ivory, pearls, carnelian and gold, were active during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in 2300 BC. Evidence exists that Harappans were bulk shipping timber and special woods plus luxury items such as lapis lazuli through northern Afghanistan over eastern Iran to Sumeria.
During the mature Harappan period lapis stones were brought overland to Lothal in Gujarat and shipped to Oman, Bahrain and Mesopotamia. This is how Indian Ocean was named Indian Ocean — the only ocean in the world named after a country.
Archaeological research in Mesopotamia, Bahrain and Oman has recovered artefacts traceable to Indus Valley civilization. Shippers from both regions converged in Persian Gulf ports, especially on the island of Bahrain, known as Dilmun, where goods coming from Mesopotamia and the Indus area were transshipped. Discoveries at Ur, a major Sumerian city-state on Euphrates, indicate that some Indus Valley merchants and artisans established communities in Mesopotamia.
World’s first dock was located at Lothal in Gujarat in 2400 BC. Modern oceanography indicates that Harappans possessed great knowledge of tides plus exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering, to build such a dock, equipped to berth and service ships, on the ever-shifting course of Sabarmati River.
Since walls of this dock are of burnt bricks, Lothal engineers studied tidal movements and their effects on brick-built structures and selected Lothal. Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuary. They also fitted a lock gate to this dock to preserve depth of water inside at predetermined levels.
Ruins of this dock were discovered in 1959–1961 by Archaeological Survey of India when they also discovered wreck of a ship built of teak wood, stitched together with coir yarn. Indian cartography located the Pole star and other constellations in their navigational charts and used a simple instrument named KAMAL to observe altitude of Pole star. They also made detailed maps describing locations, settlements, sea shores, rivers and mountains.
Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions a time when seatrade between India and Egypt did not involve direct sailings. Cargo was shipped to Aden, called Eudaimon, by both sides and was transshipped from there.
In the fourth century BC Pharaohs of Egypt built a canal to connect Red Sea with Nile river and Indian commercial connection further improved trade with Greece and ports of Roman Empire. Four embassies from Tamil country were received by Augustus Caesar.
In first century AD, Pliny the Elder famously mentions expenditure of one million sestertii every year on goods such as pepper, fine cloth and gems from southern coasts of India. He also mentions 10,000 horses shipped to this region each year and adds that there was never a time when there were less than 120 ships in ports of Greece and Roman Empire.
Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions have been found in Luxor in Egypt. In turn Tamil literature from the Sangam period mentions foreign ships arriving for trade and paying in gold for products.
Historically, the first recorded attempt to organize a navy in India is attributed to Chandra Gupta Maurya in 322–298 BC, as described by Megasthenes. Emperor Ashoka used it to send massive diplomatic missions to Greece, Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia and Epirus. During Mauryan Empire, various other regions of the world engaged in Indian Ocean maritime voyages.
Following nomadic interference in Siberia, a source for India’s bullion, India diverted attention to Malaya, which became its new source for gold via a series of maritime trade routes. Roman historian Strabo mentions that trade with India increased after Rome annexed Egypt in 30 BC. He has written this trade, initiated hundred years earlier, kept on increasing.
Indian ships sailed to ports of Barbaricum, Barygaza, Muziris, Korkai, Kaveripattinam and Arikamedu on the southern tip of India, which were main centres of this trade. Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum was involved in Indian Ocean trade network and was influenced by Roman culture and Indian architecture.
Indian presence in Alexandria may have influenced its culture. Clement of Alexandria mentions Buddha in his writing. Other Indian religions find mentions in other texts of the period. Indians were present in Alexandria and Christian and Jew settlers from Rome continued to live in India long after the fall of Roman empire, which resulted in Rome’s loss of Red Sea ports, previously used to secure trade with India by Greco-Romans since Ptolemaic dynasty.
Chola dynasty reached its peak from 200 to 1279 AD and Emperors Rajaraja Chola I and II extended Chola kingdom beyond traditional limits from Sri Lanka in the south to Godavari basin in the north. Kingdoms along east coast of India up to river Ganges acknowledged Chola suzerainty. Chola navies conquered Srivijaya in Maritime Southeast Asia.
Goods and ideas from India played a major role in its “southernization.” Yuktikalpataru, a treatise on Indian shipping written in Emperor Bhoja’s time, talked about strong and seaworthy stitched hulls of flexible forms.
Quilon, named Desinganadu, had a flourishing Chinese settlement and a commercial reputation with Phoenicians and Romans, fed by Chinese trade. In the 9th century, merchant Sulaiman of Siraf in Persia found Quilon to be the only port in India touched by huge Chinese junks. In the 14th century, Ibn Battuta wrote of Quilon as one of five Indian ports he saw during twenty-four years of his travels.
Indian rulers exchanged embassies with Chinese rulers. Indian commercial connection with Southeast Asia was vital to merchants of Arabia and Persia between 7th and 8th centuries AD. Marco Polo visited Kollam and other towns on west coast of India in 1275. The Cholas excelled in foreign maritime trade and extended their influence overseas to China and Southeast Asia through their east and west coast ports in India.
From 618 to 907 AD Tang dynasty of China, Srivijaya empire in Southeast Asia under Sailendras, and Abbasid Khalifat at Baghdad were trading partners with extensive maritime and commercial activity. Indian spice export is mentioned by many authors from 850 to 14th century AD. Huan Tsang mentions town of Puri from where “merchants departed for distant countries.”
Hindu and Buddhist religious establishments of Southeast Asia were associated with economic activity and commerce. Buddhism, in particular, travelled alongside maritime trade, promoting coinage, art and literacy. Christian missionaries, such as Saint Francis Xavier, spread Christianity which competed with Islam to become dominant religion of Maluku Islands.
In 1292, Marco Polo described Indian vessels as having a sheath of boards over the planking, caulked with oakum and fastened with iron nails. Bottoms were smeared with a preparation of quicklime and hemp, pounded together and mixed with oil from a certain tree.
14th and 15th century descriptions of Indian ships with bulkheads indicate that they carried over 100 seamen. Vasco da Gama rounded Cape of Good Hope in 1497 with four vessels via Malindi on eastern coast of Africa, to sail across Indian Ocean to Calicut.
The first Dutch expedition left Amsterdam in April 1595 for South East Asia. Another Dutch convoy sailed in 1598 and returned one year later with 600,000 pounds of spices and other Indian products. East India Company forged alliances with producers of cloves and nutmeg.
Shivaji Bhonsle maintained a navy under General Kanhoji Angre who checked initial advances of the Portuguese, including their threat to traffic and commerce on India’s west coast. British East India Company shipped substantial quantities of spices during early 17th century.
In 1830 their ships were designated as Indian navy. But from 1863 Royal Navy took control of Indian Ocean. On October 2, 1934, Royal Indian Navy was organized.
Shipbuilding was well-established along Indian coast long before Europeans arrived. European trade initially stimulated Indian shipbuilding. Vessels built in Masulipatam and Surat from Indian hardwoods by local craftsmen were cheaper and tougher than European-built ships. Indian rulers were weakened by European power but shipbuilders continued to build ships capable of carrying 800 to 1000 tons.
From 1736 a Parsi carpenter and master builder from Surat named Lowji Nuserwanji Wadia oversaw construction of thirty-five ships, out of which twenty-one were for the British. Following his death in 1774, his sons took charge of the shipyard and between them built further thirty ships over next sixteen years.
This Dockyard built ships like HMS Hindostan in 1795, HMS Ceylon in 1808 and HMS Asia in 1824. HMS Cornwallis was built in 1813, onboard which Treaty of Nanking was signed in 1842. American National Anthem, Star Spangled Banner, was composed by Francis Scott Key on HMS Minden, also built in Bombay.
The Britannia, a ship of 749 tons launched in 1778, so impressed the British that several new ships were commissioned from Bombay and some went to Royal Navy. Between 1736 and 1821, 159 ships of over 100 tons were built at Bombay, including 15 of over 1,000 tons. These ships were said to be ‘vastly superior to anything built anywhere else in the world’.
Milestones of Modern Indian Shipping
- 1891: Darmanathan Purushanthi started Purushanthi Steam Navigation Co. in Puducherry for two ships to ply through Mekong River from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Hatien in South Vietnam. The French closed it down in 1900 and also prevented him from plying his ships from Saigon to Bangkok.
- 1894: P & O forced Tata Line to close trading from Bombay to China/Japan.
- 1905: Jayotindra Nath Tagore, brother of Poet Tagore, started Bengal Steamship Company. British India Steam Navigation Co. carried free passengers and even gave each passenger a silk handkerchief as a gift, to bankrupt Tagore’s Company within three years.
- 1906: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai started Swadeshi Shipping Co. in Tuticorin.
- 1919: Scindia Steam Navigation Company was founded. On April 5, their passenger ship S.S. Loyalty sailed for U.K. This heralded the birth of modern Indian Shipping. April 5 is now observed as National Maritime Day.
- 1923: Scindia Directors refused P&O offer to buy Scindia to get rid of Indian competition. To avenge it, Government restricted Scindia tonnage to 70,000 tons.
- 1927: Training ship Dufferin was established. A British member in Viceroy’s Council said, “Indians cannot even make good officers much less captains.”
- 1947: Indian tonnage was just over 192,000 tons GRT on Independence day.
- 1982: Indian tonnage crossed 6 million GRT.
- 2010: Indian shipping tonnage was 9.71 million GRT with 1006 ships.
As against about 5 Indian captains and a handful of Indian officers and engineers in 1947, over 32,000 duly certified Masters, Officers and Engineers sail on world’s Merchant Ships earning valuable foreign exchange for our country. “Jahre Viking”, the largest ship in the world, has been commanded by an Indian. Largest Bulk Carrier “Berg Stahl” has also been commanded by two Indians in turn.
Our major ports alone handled 530,350,000 MT of cargo in 2008-09, whereas, thanks to our British rulers, all Indian ports handled only 109,813 tons in 1900. This means a minimum progress of over 4829 times in 108-9 years.
Till as late as mid-1960s, Indian Merchant ships were commanded by British Captains. British Merchant Shipping Act had to be amended in 1995 to enable non-British Master mariners to command British ships. Today our Indian Masters are commanding ships of many nationalities including British Merchant ships.