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

  SANJEEV SANYAL

  THE OCEAN OF CHURN

  How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  1. Introduction

  2. Genetics and Ice

  3. The Merchants of Meluhha

  4. Kharavela’s Revenge

  5. Kaundinya’s Wedding

  6. Arabian Knights

  7. Merchants, Temples and Rice

  8. Treasure and Spice

  9. Nutmegs and Cloves

  10. Diamonds and Opium

  11. From Dusk to a New Dawn

  Author’s Note

  Notes

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  To the Dark One, Goddess of Time, She who ultimately devours the greatest of empires and the mightiest of kings

  1

  Introduction

  In AD 731, the prosperous Pallava kingdom in southern India faced an existential crisis. The Pallava king, Parameswara Varman II, had died suddenly without a direct heir. He had been on the throne for barely three years and it is likely that he had been killed in a raid by the Chalukya crown price, Vikramaditya.1 There was a grave danger that neighbouring kingdoms would support rival claimants to the throne and then gobble up territory in the ensuing civil war.

  The Pallava dynasty had carved out a sizeable kingdom in AD sixth and seventh centuries covering much of what are now the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and southern Karnataka. Although it was not as large as some of the great empires of Indian history, what the kingdom lacked in size, it made up with its commercial and cultural vigour. The capital at Kanchipuram, 70 kms west of modern Chennai, was adorned with awe-inspiring temples. Its main port at Mahabalipuram (also called Mammalapuram, 60 kms south of modern Chennai) was busy with merchant fleets from across India and South East Asia, and even from as far as China and Arabia. However, in AD 731, it looked like the kingdom was about to collapse.

  A grand assembly of leading scholars, chieftains and other prominent citizens deliberated the matter in Kanchipuram. The discussions went on for days. In the end, it was decided that the best option was to reach out to a collateral branch of the dynasty that had survived in a distant land. Five generations earlier, a young prince called Bhima, younger brother of the great Pallava king Simha-Vishnu, had gone to a distant kingdom, married a local princess and become its ruler. The grand assembly now hoped that they would be able to persuade one of Bhima’s descendants to come and wear the Pallava crown.

  A delegation of Brahmin scholars was prepared and must have hurried to Mahabalipuram in time to catch the turning monsoon winds. We are told that the delegation then undertook a long and arduous journey crossing rivers, jungles, mountains and deep seas to reach the court of Bhima’s descendant, Hiranya Varman. There the envoys put forward their proposal. It so happened that Hiranya Varman had four sons and each of them was asked in turn if he was interested in taking the crown. The first three refused, daunted perhaps by the idea of a perilous journey and an uncertain future in a far-off kingdom. The youngest prince, however, took up the offer. He was barely twelve years old.

  The delegation now hurried back to Kanchipuram where a rival claimant called Skanda was trying to establish himself. The usurper was defeated and the young prince was crowned as Nandi Varman Pallavamalla (or Nandi Varman II). There were probably many people who doubted his claim to the throne, which may explain why his later inscriptions would emphasize his ‘pure’ Pallava lineage. He also faced constant threats from rival claimants and external enemies, particularly the Chalukyas, and may even have spent some time in exile. Nevertheless, Nandi Varman II would eventually claw back the kingdom and become one of the greatest monarchs in the history of southern India. In this he was helped by a talented general Udayachandra, possibly a childhood friend who may have accompanied him from his country of birth. Nandi Varman II would rule his kingdom until AD 796 and preside over an economic and cultural boom.

  We know about the remarkable tale of how a foreign prince was invited to rule over a kingdom in southern India because Nandi Varman II himself tells us the story in inscriptions and bas-relief panels on the walls of the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram. The temple is a little away from the main thoroughfare of the town and I found myself there on a windy January afternoon. The temple was closed for the afternoon but two friendly priests kindly let me in when I explained that I had come a long way to see the sculpted panels. So I spent a couple of hours alone ‘reading’ the story narrated by the panels.

  What struck me were the unmistakably oriental facial features of many of the depicted individuals. For instance, there is a prominent figure of a Chinese traveller. The temple priests were convinced that it showed the famous Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang (also spelled Hiuen Tsang). It is quite possible that they are right since we know from Xuan Zang’s diaries that he had visited Kanchipuram a few decades before the temple was built but, given the volume of international trade and exchange that passed through Pallava ports, it could well be another Chinese visitor. However, what I found even more interesting about these panels were the obvious parallels with Khmer art. Anyone who has also visited Angkor and other sites in Cambodia would not fail to notice the similarities.

  The close link between the Pallavas and the Cambodians is well known; even the Khmer script is derived directly from the Pallavas. There is also plenty of evidence of Pallava links with other parts of South East Asia. For instance, an inscription by Nandi Varman II has been found near the Thai-Malaysian border. This was once part of the Hindu–Buddhist kingdom of Kadaram in what is now Kedah, Malaysia. Usually historians assume that these connections were limited to trade and culture, but is it possible that Nandi Varman II was from South East Asia? It turns out that there is some reason to believe that not just Nandi Varman II but the Pallava dynasty itself may have had its roots in the region!

  Scholars have long debated the origins of the Pallavas—some claiming local roots while others have speculated on north Indian or Parthian ancestry. There are several founding myths but all of them agree that the dynasty began with a marriage to a princess from a Naga or Serpent clan from across the seas. A Pallava inscription clearly suggests that the dynasty derived its royal legitimacy from this alliance.2 While scholars have spent a lot of effort trying to speculate on the patrilineal origins of the dynasty, the Pallavas themselves seem to have placed greater emphasis on this matrilineal link to Naga royals.

  So, where did this Naga princess come from? Most historians give little thought to female lineages and simply assume that she must have come from some small kingdom in nearby Sri Lanka.3 But, what if she was from South East Asia? As we shall see, the term ‘Naga’, meaning serpent, is often associated with the people of this region. More specifically, the multi-headed cobra was the symbol of Cambodian royalty from ancient times and is still used to this day. It is also significant that the earlier mentioned Nandi Varman II inscription is very close to the archaeological remains of Kadaram in Malaysia. The site is located in the Bujang Valley.4 The word bhujang is a Sanskrit synonym for naga, which means the area is literally called the Valley of the Serpents.

  Whether Cambodian or Malay, it suggests that the Pallavas had been repeatedly marrying into the Naga royal clan. Nandi Varman’s ancestor Bhima, in other words, had not sailed off to an unfamiliar land but to a country with which the Pallavas already had close family ties. This may explain why Nandi Varman II was able to make the claim that he was a ‘pure’ Pallava from both his father’s and mother’s lines. Not only was he a descendant of the Pallava prince Bhima,
he was also the son of a Naga princess, the original source of the dynasty’s royal legitimacy.

  Within the compound of the Vaikuntha Perumal temple, under a large tree, the visitor will come across a colourful shrine dedicated to the snake spirits. These are not uncommon in parts of India but it takes on a special meaning when seen in the context of a temple built by Nandi Varman II.

  The story of Nandi Varman II is intriguing in many ways. At one level, it is about the extraordinary life of a twelve-year-old prince who is unexpectedly invited to rule a faraway kingdom and somehow succeeds against the odds. At another level, it is about the Indian Ocean—the churn of people, goods and ideas along its shores that have defined human history from the very beginning.

  The influence of Indian civilization on South East Asia is obvious to anyone who has travelled around the region and it is increasingly well documented. The impact that South East Asia had on cultural and historical events in India is less appreciated. The evidence, however, suggests that the influence flowed both ways. There are many examples, including the famed university of Nalanda in Bihar, that attracted students from around the Indian Ocean rim as well as from China and Central Asia. Few people realize that the university was partly funded by the Sri Vijaya kings of Sumatra.

  A similar world of exchange and interaction also defined the western Indian Ocean for thousands of years. Over the centuries, Indian ports welcomed Arab, Persian, Roman, Greek and Jewish merchants even as Indian merchants found their way across the Middle East and down the African coast. Thus, the large Indian communities one encounters in the Persian Gulf countries, in East Africa and in South East Asia have a very long history. Conversely, the oldest living Jewish community in the world is to be found in the Indian state of Kerala, although its numbers have dwindled recently due to migration to Israel. Thus the churn of people continues.

  India’s geographical location and its cultural and economic weight made it the pivot of the Indian Ocean world, but readers should note that interaction and exchange between the eastern and western Indian Ocean did not always involve India or Indians. For instance, the Indonesians sailed right across the ocean in their outrigger boats and were the first humans to colonize Madagascar between AD sixth and ninth centuries. Their descendants still live there and continue to speak Malagasy, Madagascar’s national language, which is derived from the dialects of Borneo.

  Thus, when Vasco da Gama led the Portuguese fleet into the Indian Ocean in 1497–98, it had already been a highly interconnected ecosystem for a very long time. Its economic importance can be gauged from how both the Chinese and the Europeans, who were not directly a part of this ecosystem, made great efforts to gain access to it. Indeed, the discovery of the Americas by Columbus was an unintended consequence of the desire to find a trading route to the Indian Ocean. History is full of such unintended consequences.

  Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Europeans gradually came to dominate the Indian Ocean. It was not smooth sailing. The locals often fought back with determination and, in many cases, the Europeans fought bitterly with each other. Meanwhile, the discovery of the Americas gave the Atlantic a new economic and strategic importance even as the Mediterranean became a backwater. The Indian Ocean, nonetheless, remained the key arena of world affairs. We can gauge this from how the Dutch considered it a victory when they forced the English in 1667 to hand over the tiny nutmeg-growing island of Run in the East Indies, now Indonesia, in exchange for a much larger island in North America’s eastern seaboard. That island was Manhattan.

  By the early nineteenth century, the Atlantic was clearly beginning to rival the Indian Ocean. The latter was still a very important theatre of activity and, under British control, the period witnessed unprecedented movement of goods and people. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the deployment of steam-powered ships heralded a period of rapid globalization. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that by the end of the nineteenth century it was the Atlantic that held centre stage.

  Then, in the second half of the twentieth century, the Pacific rim rose in importance due to the growing economic clout of California, Japan, and eventually, China. A great deal of shipping continued to flow between the Suez and the Straits of Malacca but, unlike in the past, they were mostly passing through to other places. For the only time in history, the ecosystem of the Indian Ocean was more a spectator than a participant.

  A number of well-known writers like Robert Kaplan, however, feel that the pendulum is now gradually swinging back. In his influential book, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, Kaplan argues that the geopolitics of the twenty-first century will be decided by events in the Indian Ocean rim.5 This is not far-fetched given the demographic weight of countries like India and Indonesia, the natural resources of the Middle East, East Africa and Western Australia (yes, Australia is also an Indian Ocean country; people forget that), and the complex political–cultural mix of the region.

  This book, of course, is not directly concerned with the future but more with how we got here. It is a brief and eclectic history of the Indian Ocean rim and the many forces—political, economic, sociocultural, technological and, not to forget, natural—that have shaped the world we see around us. Given this wide scope, I have not attempted to be comprehensive as it would have made the book both unreadable and unwritable. Instead, I have tried to give the reader a feel of a colourful and ever-changing Indian Ocean world and its impact on human history.

  Readers should also note that this book does not strictly adhere to the exact geographical definition of the term ‘Indian Ocean’ as defined by the International Hydrographic Organization, Monaco. Such a definition is necessarily arbitrary and does not impact the flow of history. Therefore, I have included inlets like the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Straits of Malacca, and places like Cambodia and Iran as required in the story although they may not be labelled on a conventional map as part of the Indian Ocean world. These places were part of the broader economic, cultural and political ecosystem of the Indian Ocean and need to be included in the narrative.

  Looking in from the Sea

  One of the things that this book hopes to show is the extent to which history looks different when witnessed from the coastlines rather than from an inland point of view. Most histories of Asia tend to tell the narrative from the perspective of continental empires—the Mauryan and Mughal empires in India, the Mongols in Central Asia, the Tang dynasty in China and so on. Maritime history only attracts some attention with the arrival of the Europeans. However, this completely ignores the rich maritime history that predated Vasco da Gama’s famous voyage. Thus, the Cholas of India, the Majapahit of Indonesia and the Omanis are mentioned almost as footnotes. This is the equivalent of telling European history with little reference to Athens, Venice or the Vikings.

  One of the interesting outcomes of the shift in viewpoint is how it changes our perceptions of both events and individuals. Take, for example, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka who is often portrayed in conventional histories as a great monarch and a pacifist. However, when seen from the perspective of the coastal state of Odisha, he appears much less benign. The same can be said of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore in the late eighteenth century, who is often lionized in India for his opposition to British colonial expansion. When seen from the perspective of the Kerala coast, he looks like a ruthless marauder.

  With the shift of perspectives, one discovers instead the importance of remarkable individuals such as Odisha’s Kharavela who probably ended the Mauryan empire, and Marthanda Varma of Travancore who decisively defeated the Dutch and ended their dreams of colonizing India. Moreover, compared to terrestrial history, maritime history is driven less by monarchs and dynasties and much more by a varied cast of characters including explorers, adventurers, merchants and even pirates. One comes across characters like Nathaniel Courthope of the English East India Company who heroically held out against the Dutch, under impossible circumstances, at
his post on the remote Indonesian island of Run.

  As mentioned earlier, one thing that particularly struck me when researching for this book was the extent to which previous histories of the Indian Ocean or the maritime Spice Route were written almost exclusively from a Western point of view—a view that tends to focus largely on developments after Europeans entered the scene. Even when earlier history is mentioned, it is treated either as background material or in terms of the medieval European yearning for Asian spices, as if the people of the Indian Ocean were sitting around lazily growing spices for export until the Europeans turned up and made things exciting. By the same token, such histories end when the Europeans leave in the mid-twentieth century, as if history subsequently stopped for the locals.

  Even when dealing with the colonial period, we find there is almost exclusive focus on what the colonial powers were doing. The locals are mentioned only when they threaten colonial expansion in any way. In reality, the people of the region were reacting to the evolving situation in multiple ways. There were individuals like the Parsi opium merchant Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and the African slave trader Tippu Tip who became very wealthy by taking advantage of new opportunities. There were the large numbers of desperately poor Indian and Chinese labourers who used colonial-era networks and braved their way to far-off islands like Mauritius and Singapore. There were the Bugis pirates who became notorious in the waters of South East Asia. And then there was the heroic last stand of the Balinese against Dutch aggression in the early twentieth century.

  Another systematic bias that I found in the existing literature is the preference given to writers and sources from outside the Indian Ocean world. Local texts, inscriptions and oral histories are routinely discounted as being somehow inferior sources than the testimonies of foreign visitors and travellers who are assumed to have greater credibility. I am not suggesting that we should not use the writings of foreign travellers—I have used them extensively in this book—but want to point out that such sources should not be blindly accepted as they too contain their own biases and prejudices. These not only pertain to colonial-era biases but are also evident in highly regarded precolonial sources. Take, for instance, Ibn Battuta, the famous fourteenth-century Moroccan traveller, who proudly recounts how he threw out an elderly Jewish physician from a dinner party hosted by the Sultan of Birgi for no apparent reason other than his religion. He had not behaved unusually badly and merely reflected a common prejudice of his times, but modern historians who use Ibn Battuta need to consciously adjust for this.6 We see a similar slant in the writings of Chinese pilgrim-scholars like Xuan Zang who viewed the world exclusively from a Buddhist perspective. Thus, we are told of an incident where Xuan Zang is robbed of all his belongings and is helped by a group of Brahmins in Kashmir who give him new clothes and provisions. Far from being grateful after accepting all the gifts, Xuan Zang proceeds to lecture them on their ‘erroneous doctrine’!7