Land of seven rivers: History of India's Geography

by Sanyal, Sanjeev

  Meanwhile, Europe was literally in the dark about the geography of Asia. The Arabs appear to have been able to enforce an information blockade over centuries. With the works of classical geographers lost and memories of pre-Islamic trade with India fading, Europe was hostage to garbled information and even blatant charlatans. One of the most famous of the charlatans was Sir John Mandeville, an Englishman who wrote a book full of fantastical tales called simply The Travels. He set off from St. Albans in 1322 and returned to England thirty-four years later claiming to have visited India, China, Java, Sumatra and many other places. Geographers, kings and priests studied the book in detail and it was translated into virtually every important European language. His importance can be gauged from the fact that 300 handwritten copies of The Travels have survived in various libraries, four times as many as Marco Polo’s book.3

  Some writers like Giles Milton have argued that Mandeville’s stories about the Eastern Mediterranean have an element of truth in them, but it cannot be denied that his writings about Asia are outrageous. He talks of women with dogs’ heads, one-eyed giants, geese with two heads, giant snails, men with testicles that dangled between their knees, and cannibal pagans who ate their babies. He embellished the widely-held medieval belief that India was ruled by a powerful Christian king called Prester John. Mandeville tells us that he arrived in India after an arduous overland journey but was pleased to find the rich and populous kingdom of Prester John. He goes to some length to describe the palace and the liberal use of precious stones. We are told that the emperor ruled over a massive kingdom and was waited upon by seven kings, seventy-two dukes and 360 earls—all Christian. Every time he went to battle, he was accompanied by three huge crosses of solid gold. Each cross was protected by 10,000 men-at-arms and 100,000 foot soldiers.4 All this was lapped up by Europeans pleased to hear that there was a potential Christian ally in the east.

  Despite everything, Mandeville’s book had a very profound impact on the history of the world. He claimed that his travels had proved that the world was round and his book popularized the idea that it was possible to reach India by sailing west. Columbus planned his 1492 expedition after reading The Travels, and explorers like Raleigh read the book very carefully. Thus, one of the greatest discoveries of history was based on an elaborate lie!

  Not all reports by European travellers, however, were fictional. With the sudden expansion of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century, the Arab stranglehold was finally broken and a few Europeans did genuinely travel to the east. The best known of these is Marco Polo. He is today remembered for his travels along the Silk Route to China and his stay at the court of Kublai Khan. However, he returned home by the sea route through South East Asia around 1292. On the way, he visited the ports of southern India and has left us extensive descriptions of what he saw. He tells us of bustling ports that exported pepper and imported horses, of Hindu temples and rituals, of diving for pearls, of a royal harem with 500 concubines, and even of a popular and wise queen who ruled an inland kingdom that produced diamonds (probably Kakatiya queen Rudrama Devi of Golkonda).5

  Polo’s facts and Mandeville’s fiction both fired the European imagination. As the Renaissance took hold in the fifteenth century, European scholars opened their minds to the knowledge of classical civilizations. The works of Ptolemy were revisited and there were attempts to draw maps of India based on his descriptions. The Ptolemaic maps are a strange construct. Since no maps had survived from classical times, they were drawn purely by reading a text. Therefore, the Ptolemaic maps miss out on basic facts that would have been so obvious to Ptolemy himself that he did not dwell on them in his text. For instance, the maps do not show India’s coastline as a peninsula but as a long east–west coast. Furthermore, the texts were over a thousand years old by the time they were being used to re-construct India’s geography. Thus, they prominently mark places like Taxila that had disappeared over a millennia earlier. Such was the state of knowledge when the Portuguese decided to look for a way around Africa.

  FOLLOWING VASCO

  The Portuguese were the first European country to invest heavily into the systematic mapping of the world’s oceans. Prince Henry the Navigator, the king’s younger brother, became a patron of cartography and exploration. Through the fifteenth century, the Portuguese explored the west coast of Africa and established trading posts and refuelling points. Imagine their indignation when Spain backed a maverick called Columbus who sailed west, based on patchy and erroneous data, and made one of the greatest discoveries of history. Incensed, they lobbied with the Pope to divide the world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence. As per the Treaty of Tordesillas 1494, Spain was awarded a claim to all lands west of a meridian of longitude 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. All lands discovered to the east of the line belonged to Portugal.

  When it soon became clear that Columbus had not found a westward route to India, the Portuguese must have heaved a sigh of relief. They knew from an earlier voyage led by Bartholomeu Dias that Africa could be rounded. A new expedition was prepared in 1497 under Vasco da Gama. It comprised of three ships—the flagship San Gabriel, the smaller San Rafael and the traditional caravel Barrio.6 An unarmed supply-ship also accompanied them part of the way. Note that these ships would have been quite small and unsophisticated compared to those of Admiral Zheng He, but the Chinese had already withdrawn into an inward-looking shell and were no threat to the Portuguese.

  The fleet set sail on 8 July 1497 and rounded the Cape of Good Hope by November. After this point Vasco was in uncharted waters. As they sailed up the Mozambique coast, the Portuguese began to encounter Arabic-speaking people. Vasco must have been very pleased to see this because it proved that he was indeed in the Indian Ocean. The Arabs had long established slaving ports along this coast and some of them had grown into sizeable habitations. However, no one in this world expected to come upon a European fleet. Indeed, it appears that the Arabs initially thought that these fair-skinned foreigners were Turks. The Portuguese had the advantage of having several Arabic speakers amongst them as the Iberian peninsula had only recently been liberated from Moorish rule. Thus, they were able to converse with the locals and pretend to be fellow-Muslims. When asked by a local sheikh for his copy of the Koran, Vasco lied that he had left it behind in his homeland near Turkey.7

  The deception could not last for ever and was eventually discovered. The Portuguese fended off an attack and hastily sailed farther north in search of Kilwa, an island-city and port that was important enough to be known in Europe. However, they got lost and instead found themselves in Mombasa which was another important port-city. Unfortunately, news of their deception had already made its way up the coast and the Portuguese narrowly escaped being lured into a trap by the sultan of Mombasa.

  Vasco da Gama pushed farther north. Along the coast, he made inquiries about Christians and about the kingdom of Prester John. At last he found himself in the harbour of Malindi, a port that had been visited by the Chinese treasure fleet eighty years earlier and was the source of two giraffes that had been taken back to China. The ruler of Malindi was under no illusions about the identity of his guests but was in need of allies against Mombasa. He, therefore, opted to welcome the Portuguese.

  Alvaro Velho, one of Da Gama’s soldiers, has left us a description of the part-Arab, part-African world of the Swahili coast. The larger port-towns like Mombasa and Malindi had houses built of stone and lime. The population was mainly black African, with a ruling class of Arab extract. The merchants were mainly Arab but some Indians continued to visit these parts despite the caste restrictions. Vestiges of this world can still be seen in the Stone-Town of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The island of Zanzibar remained a major source of slaves bound for the Middle East till the nineteenth century. It continued to be ruled by an Omani Arab dynasty, under British protection, till as recently as 1963.

  A community of Indian merchants had long visited Zanzibar but, under British protection, many more wen
t to settle down there. By the early decades of the twentieth century, there was a thriving Indian community on the island. The singer Freddie Mercury was born here into a Parsi family in 1946. His name at birth was Farrokh Balsara and the house where he spent the first few years of his life still stands in Stone-Town. In a bloody revolution in 1963, however, the Arab dynasty was overthrown, thousands of Arabs and Indians were killed and the island soon became a semi-autonomous province of Tanzania. Still, a small Indian community lives in the narrow lanes of Stone-Town, speaking the Kutchhi dialect of Gujarat and worshipping in the few remaining temples. There was something about the atmosphere of Zanzibar that reminded me strongly of the old parts of Kochi and even of old Ahmedabad on the other side of the Indian Ocean. Perhaps it was the food, the smell of spices sold in the open, sailing-dhows bobbing in the sea or just the weight of centuries of trade with India.

  In early 1498, Vasco da Gama had been trying to get a good pilot to guide his fleet across the Indian Ocean but was having difficulty finding one. In Malindi his luck changed and the sultan provided him with an experienced pilot described as a ‘Moor from Gujarat’. There is considerable debate about the identity of this pilot and some scholars have argued that it may have been the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid. In reality we know very little about the man except that Velho called him by the name Malema Cana.

  Both the pilot and the weather proved to be good, and the Portuguese fleet reached the Indian coast in barely twenty-three days. The open harbour of Kozhikode (also called Calicut) was filled with vessels of different sizes and the beach was lined with shops and warehouses. Further inland was a large and opulent city. The Portuguese ships were a novelty and we are told that the locals rowed up to them, women and children in tow, to have a closer look.

  The ruler of Calicut was the Samudrin or Lord of the Sea (often mispronounced as Zamorin). He lived in a large palace and was protected by ferocious warriors of the Nair caste. The majority of the people were Hindu, but the Portuguese initially thought of them as debased Christians. Their confusion may have been partly derived from the legends of Prester John and partly from the presence of communities of genuine Christians. They would correct their view later. The Portuguese would have also noticed that maritime trade was dominated by a large and powerful community of Arab merchants who would not be pleased to see them.

  Vasco knew that he had to get back to Lisbon as soon as possible to report his findings. The longer he stayed, the more likely that the Arabs would find a way to trap him or turn the local ruler against him. He presented himself to the Samudrin and tried to make the best possible impression with gifts and protestations of peace. Although the Arabs did instigate some Nair guards to briefly hold Da Gama captive, he was soon freed and was heading back to Europe. Not surprisingly, he was given a hero’s welcome in Lisbon. King Manuel lost no time in writing to the Spanish monarchs to inform them that the Portuguese half of the world contained India. He also assured them that India was full of Christians ‘although not yet strong in faith and possessed of a thorough knowledge of it’.8

  The Portuguese lost no time in following up on their discovery. A fleet of thirteen ships and 1200 men was dispatched under the command of Pedro Alvares Cabral. They were heavily armed with cannons and guns, still unknown in the Indian Ocean. By now the Portuguese had worked out that winds and ocean currents made it more efficient to first sail south-west and then turn east rather than hug the coast of Africa. The fleet swung so far west that they landed on the Brazil coast and claimed it for Portugal. Note that only a small part of Brazil actually fell within the Portuguese sphere as per the Treaty of Tordesillas, but cartographic ambiguity would allow the Portuguese to grab more than their share. The Spanish would have their revenge by taking the Philippines which was clearly in the Portuguese sphere. Soon, the papal division would completely break down as other Europeans joined the race.

  On reaching Calicut, Cabral presented the Samudrin with many lavish gifts before putting forward the demand that he expel the Arabs and trade exclusively with the Portuguese. The Samudrin was understandably taken aback. While these negotiations were going on, a Meccan ship loaded with cargo prepared to leave for Aden. The Portuguese seized it and triggered riots in which a number of Portuguese men were killed. Cabral responded by lining up his ships and firing broadside after broadside into the city. The Samudrin was forced to flee from his palace. A number of merchant ships were seized and their sailors were burned alive in full view of the people onshore. Thus began the European domination of the Indian Ocean that would last till the middle of the twentieth century.

  Within a few decades, the Portuguese used their cannons to establish a string of outposts in the Indian Ocean. Control over Socotra and Muscat allowed them to control the Red Sea and Persian Gulf respectively. In 1510, they conquered Goa. A year later, a fleet sent out from Goa took over Melaka and established control over the key shipping route to the Spice Islands. Soon, they had trading posts in Macau and Nagasaki. The Portuguese maintained control over the seas with an iron fist and, even by the standards of the time, gained a reputation for extreme cruelty and religious bigotry. They destroyed numerous Hindu temples, persecuted the Syrian Christians and harassed ships carrying Muslims for the Hajj, on occasion burning the ships mid-sea with the pilgrims still on board. Perhaps no one suffered more from Portuguese repression than the Sri Lankans, both Tamils and Sinhalese. Much of the island was in a state of almost constant war for one and a half centuries. One can only be grateful that the Portuguese lacked the resources to attempt a full-scale conquest of the subcontinent.

  Portuguese control over the Indian Ocean was based on a network of forts along the coast. The best preserved of these forts is in Diu, a small island just off the Gujarat coast. I recommend climbing the ramparts to see the beautiful views of the Arabian Sea and the impressive array of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cannons. There are few places in the world where one can see and touch such a large number of early cannons, their solid wood wheels weathered by centuries of rain and sun. In 1538, the Portuguese were able to defend Diu against a combined attack by the Sultan of Gujarat and a large fleet sent by the Ottoman Turks. A huge Ottoman cannon, cast in 1531 in Egypt, is the only remnant of the failed Turkish expedition and can still be seen in Junagarh fort. The Portuguese would manage to hold on to Diu till as recently as 1961. The last of the outposts in Asia, Macau, was handed back to the Chinese in 1999. The Portuguese had been the first Europeans to come to this part of the world and they were the last to leave.

  THEATRUM ORBIS TERRARUM

  When Vasco da Gama landed in India, it had a population of around 110 million. At that time, China had an estimated population of 103 million, the United Kingdom 3.9 million and Portugal just 1 million.9 India was still a major economic power with a share of 24.5 per cent of world GDP. Nonetheless, this was smaller than the one-third share of world GDP that it had enjoyed in the first millennium AD. Around 1500, the Chinese economy bypassed the Indian economy in terms of size for the first time. Moreover, per capita income in India fell below the global average. After having lagged behind India for centuries, most European countries enjoyed higher per capita incomes by 1500. The richest country in Europe, Italy, had a per capita income that was twice the Indian level. The individual brilliance of rulers like Akbar and Krishnadeva Raya may have created periods of prosperity, but it did not reverse the trend. In short, the glittering Mughal court of the sixteenth and seventeenth century hid the fact that India was already in relative decline.

  As argued in my previous book, The Indian Renaissance, the problem was a growing technological gap between the Europeans and everyone else. The most cutting-edge technology of that time was cartography—the technique of making maps—and the Europeans were simply miles ahead by the beginning of the sixteenth century. The discoveries of the Portuguese were put down on hand-drawn maps and these charts were considered top secret. Before each voyage, the captain was allowed to make a copy from the royal l
ibrary and was expected to return it with new discoveries marked out when he got back.10 Not surprisingly, the maps were the focus of international espionage. In 1502, Alberto Cantino, an agent of the Duke of Ferrera, stole a chart from Lisbon and took it to Italy. It is preserved in the Biblioteca Estense of Modena and shows that the Portuguese had quickly worked out that India was a peninsula although many elements of Ptolemaic geography were still retained.

  The first map showing the Indian peninsula to be published publicly was by Johan Ruysch in Rome in 1508. It shows India as a peninsula and marks a few of the ports on the coast but shows little knowledge of the country’s interiors. The Indus and the Ganga are the only two Indian rivers marked but their courses are essentially arbitrary. It also shows the Malay peninsula and marks Melaka (spelled Malacha on the map). A well-known map by Waldseemüller in 1513 has a broadly similar layout. Over the next century, more maps were published and the level of knowledge improved, albeit not always linearly. Mistakes were common and often perpetuated by cartographers copying information from each other. Empty spaces were decorated with drawings, often echoing the fantastical creatures of Mandeville. Nonetheless, geographical knowledge went through a major shift in the sixteenth century. At the centre of the cartographic revolution were two individuals, Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortilius, contemporaries from the Low Countries.