The Guptas would enjoy direct and indirect control over most of the Indian subcontinent for several generations. North and central India was ruled directly from Pataliputra while peninsular India was managed through tributary kingdoms or close allies like the Vakatakas. Central Asian groups would continue to make occasional raids from the north-west but Chandragupta Vikramaditya’s immediate successors Kumaragupta and Skandagupta were able to fend them off.
With peace established over such a large territory, the Gupta era witnessed an extraordinary economic and cultural boom, and is often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of classical India. The empire’s ports in Gujarat and Bengal were busy with merchants, diplomats, scholars and pilgrims from China, Persia, Arabia, Ethiopia and the eastern Roman empire. Although the Guptas were staunch Hindus they followed a policy of religious tolerance. A Chinese text tells us that the Sri Lankan king Meghavarna sent a mission to Samudragupta to request permission to set up a monastery and rest house for Lankan pilgrims visiting Bodh Gaya. Permission was granted and a grand monastery was built; its magnificence was later described by the Chinese scholar–pilgrim Xuan Zang in the seventh century. The famous Nalanda University was also established under Gupta rule.
Fa Xian’s Voyage Home
A Chinese scholar called Fa Xian (also spelled Fa Hien) visited India in the early fifth century and has left us a fascinating account of his journey. He came to India by land via Central Asia and spent several years in northern India studying Buddhist texts. Although his writings are heavily skewed towards places and matters of interest to a Buddhist pilgrim, Fa Xian leaves us with the impression that India was a prosperous and well-governed country under the Guptas. Most interestingly for the purposes of this book, he has left us a vivid account of his return journey by sea.2
Around AD 410, Fa Xian left the Gupta capital of Pataliputra and made his way down the Ganga. There were several ports in Bengal during this period. One of them was Chandraketugarh, the remains of which have been uncovered 30 kms north of modern-day Kolkata. Archaeologists excavating a mound near Kolkata airport have recently found the remains of another ancient settlement.3 In other words, the city has a history that goes back much before the establishment of a colonial settlement in the seventeenth century.
Fa Xian would have sailed past all these settlements as he made his way to the most important port in Bengal—Tamralipti. The site of this famous port of antiquity is now called Tamluk, a couple of hours drive south-west of Kolkata, near where the Rupnarayan flows into the Gangetic delta. The old channel of the river that Fa Xian would have used, however, has dried up. Except for a 1200-year-old temple dedicated to goddess Kali, there is little there today to hint at its past glory.
Fa Xian remained here for two years copying sacred documents. He then boarded a big merchant ship that set sail with the first winds of the winter monsoons (probably around Kartik Purnima). We are told that it took just fourteen days for the ship to reach Sri Lanka. Fa Xian would spend another two years on the island studying and copying various scriptures. He tells us that Buddhism was flourishing and that the king, as the custodian of the sacred Tooth Relic, was a generous patron to the Buddhist sangha. Interestingly, he adds that the king lived his personal life strictly according to Hindu rules and rituals.
Next Fa Xian set sail for South East Asia on board a large merchant vessel. The ship must have been fairly large as it carried two hundred people and had a smaller vessel accompanying it with stores. Unfortunately, after two days of fair weather, the ships ran into a major storm and the larger ship sprang a leak. There was panic and some of the passengers tried to forcibly board the smaller boat. The crew of the smaller ship, fearing a stampede, cut the towing cable and sailed away. With little choice, the merchants began to throw their valuable cargo overboard to save their ship. Fa Xian also threw his water basin and pitcher. He feared he would be forced to throw away his beloved books too, but the weather soon cleared up.
After thirteen days they arrived at a small island. The ship was beached and the leak was repaired. No one was sure about the location of the island and there were fears that they would be attacked by pirates (it is likely that this was one of the islands off the north Sumatra coast or perhaps the Nicobar Islands). Eventually, the crew got its bearings and set on a new course. After ninety days at sea, they finally reached Java. Fa Xian spent five months there. All he tells us about Java is that it had an overwhelmingly Hindu population and very few Buddhists (this was not entirely true given the evidence of Borobudur).
He now boarded another merchant ship headed for China. This must have been a very big vessel because the crew alone numbered two hundred men. We are told, furthermore, that the ship carried adequate provisions for fifty days. Fa Xian was very comfortable on this ship and it is possible he even enjoyed a cabin. After a month at sea, however, they were hit by a major storm. Again, there was panic on board. Some of his co-passengers even blamed Fa Xian for bringing bad luck (perhaps they had heard of his previous voyage and thought this was too much of a coincidence)! Luckily an influential merchant intervened and calmed things down.
Meanwhile, the storm had blown the ship off course and they could not sight land even after seventy days at sea. Provisions and water were running desperately low and the crew members started blaming each other. Fed up with the bickering, some of the more experienced merchants took charge and set a new course to the north-west. Eventually, after another twelve days, they arrived on the Chinese coast.
This narrative is fascinating at many levels. It provides the earliest first-hand description of an actual voyage in the eastern Indian Ocean. It also tells us that by the fifth century, there was a well-established sea route from Bengal to Sri Lanka and onward to China via South East Asia. Despite all the dangers, there were large ships and experienced merchants that seemed to have routinely made the journey.
The Mystery of the Pallavas
As mentioned in the previous chapter, the early history of the southern tip of India is dominated by the rivalries of three clans—the Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas. The Sinhalese kings of Sri Lanka sometimes participated in this, usually as allies of the Pandyas. The exact territories and alliances waxed and waned but roughly speaking the core stronghold of the Cheras was the Kerala coast, for the Pandyas it was southern Tamil Nadu, around Madurai, and the Chola power base was the Kaveri delta. It is astonishing that this triangular contest continued for over fifteen centuries. Put in a European context, this would be equivalent to the War of the Roses still going on and having another thousand years to run!
Nevertheless, a few other dynasties did insert themselves into the story for significant periods of time. Perhaps the most important of these were the Pallavas of Kanchipuram (this is less than a two-hour drive from Chennai). A Pallava kingdom already existed when Samudragupta marched down on his southern campaign. However, there is a long-standing debate about the origins of this dynasty.4 The texts and inscriptions variously hint at a Chola prince, an Andhra chieftain or a Brahmin scholar. Some scholars have even speculated about Parthian origins. Nevertheless, all the available evidence agrees that the dynasty gained its royal status from the marriage to a princess of the Naga clan. Clearly, this marriage alliance is an important part of the story.
As we know, the term ‘Naga’ was often used to refer to people with oriental features in North-East India or in South East Asia (i.e. the Sundaland diaspora). The Pallavas are known to have links with kingdoms in South East Asia that used the serpent as a symbol or called themselves the serpent people. As mentioned in Chapter 1, for instance, the remains of the Kadaram kingdom in Kedah, Malaysia, are concentrated in an area that is still called the Valley of the Serpents. Similarly, the multi-headed cobra was the symbol of royalty among the Khmer. It raises the possibility that the Naga princess who helped found the Pallava dynasty was from South East Asia—maybe a descendant of Princess Soma and Kaundinya! Perhaps this explains the especially close links between the Pallavas and the Indianize
d kingdoms of that part of the world.
In AD sixth century, the Pallavas began to expand their kingdom under king Simha-Vishnu who defeated the Cholas, the Pandyas and a mysterious tribe called the Kalabhras. Having secured themselves to the south, the Pallavas then turned their attention to the north where they came in conflict with the Chalukyas who had carved out a large kingdom in what are now the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra. The Pallava-Chalukya rivalry would last several generations with the pendulum of fortune swinging back and forth.
Simha-Vishnu had a younger brother Bhima who sailed to a distant land and became a ruler after marrying a local princess. Five generations later, when Simha-Vishnu’s direct line died out, the Pallavas would bring back a twelve-year-old descendant of Bhima to sit on the throne. The boy would become Nandi Varman II whom readers will recall from the beginning of this book. It is interesting that his inscriptions emphasize that he was a ‘pure’ Pallava. One explanation would be that, being foreign-born, he needed to firmly emphasize his right to the throne. However, the oriental faces in the temple panels suggest he was not shy of his South East Asian links. Perhaps the term ‘pure’ has a somewhat different meaning. Remember that the Pallava dynasty began with a marriage to a Naga princess. So Nandi Varman II may have been making a different point—that he was the descendant of a Pallava prince—that is, Bhima—and a Naga queen and, consequently, a true Pallava.
At the height of their power, the Pallavas controlled Tamil Nadu, southern Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Sri Lanka. Their capital of Kanchipuram and their main port in Mahabalipuram were impressive cities that the Pallava kings adorned with large Hindu temples. Several of them have survived in both locations and are well worth a visit. Modern-day tourists visiting Mahabalipuram usually see the rock-cut caves and the Shore Temple. They will often ignore a modern lighthouse on a hill behind the ancient monuments. However, maritime history buffs would be rewarded if they walked up to it because they will come across the remains of a Pallava-era lighthouse built around AD 630 where a fire was kept burning every night in order to guide ships to the port.
Although the archaeological remains in Mahabalipuram are impressive, most of the Pallava-era port city is now under the sea. There is an old legend that there were originally seven temples on the shore. It was said that the city’s wealthy citizens grew so arrogant that the gods sent a great flood to punish them. The flood swept away all but one of the temples, the lonely Shore Temple that we see today. Historians had long discounted this oral history despite claims by local fishermen that their nets routinely got entangled in stone structures in the sea.
Then, in December 2004, a deadly tsunami hit coastlines across the Indian Ocean. Before the tsunami came in, the sea first withdrew and, for a few minutes, exposed several stone structures off the coast of Mahabalipuram. Later investigations by the Archaeological Survey of India have confirmed that there are indeed several temples and man-made structures that lie submerged off the coast.5 Moreover, studies of the area have found evidence that this coastline has been hit by tsunamis repeatedly and it is possible that the flood mentioned in the legend relates to a tsunami.
With whom were the merchant fleets of Mahabalipuram trading? By the eighth century, there were already a number of well-developed Indianized kingdoms in South East Asia. The Sri Vijaya kingdom covered most of Sumatra and the Malay peninsula. It had two major urban hubs—Palembang on Sumatra and Kadaram on the peninsula. Java was another major political centre. Its kingdoms steadily extended their influence over islands such as Bali and Madura till it later grew into the great Majapahit empire that controlled a large swathe of what is now Indonesia. In Cambodia, the Khmers were welded into a kingdom that culminated in the Angkor empire. Further east, the kingdom of Champa stretched along the central and southern coast of Vietnam (some historians argue that it was more a confederacy than a centralized kingdom). These kingdoms traded with each other and with India and China. They also fought bitter wars, particularly the Khmers versus the Chams, and the Javans versus the Sri Vijaya.
Given the close political and commercial links between the Pallavas and these kingdoms, it is not surprising that the dominant source of Indian influence in South East Asia shifted from Odiya to Tamil during this period. For instance, the South East Asians adopted the Pallava version of the Brahmi script. This is why the scripts used to write Khmer, Thai, Lao, Burmese and Javanese-Kawi are derived from the Pallava script. Till the early nineteenth century, the Brahmi-derived Baybayin script was even used to write Tagalog in the Philippines.
As we saw from Fa Xian’s account, the trade routes between India and China were well established by the fifth century. By the Pallava period, there were large Indian merchant communities living in Chinese ports. Since the 1930s, archaeologists have discovered evidence of a number of Hindu shrines and at least two large temples in and around the port city of Quanzhou.6 These include stone carvings depicting mythological tales related to the gods Vishnu and Shiva that look identical to those found in southern India during the same period. In the nearby village of Chedian, locals still worship the image of a goddess who is clearly of Indian origin (the villagers see her as a form of the Chinese goddess Guanyin).
Arabia on the Eve of Islam
As we have seen, the history of ancient Yemen was about the rivalries between clans such as the Sabeans, Hadhramis and the Himyar. Their culture was quite distinct from that of the Arabs. However, from AD second century, the dynamics of the region began to change due to demographic, cultural and geopolitical shifts. Initially, the region witnessed the arrival of a large Jewish trader and refugee community from the west. The descendants of these Jewish settlers would survive in both Ethiopia and Yemen until the twentieth century.
Meanwhile, waves of Arabs from the area around modern Riyadh began to encroach into neighbouring territories. One branch pushed into Yemen and Oman. It is not clear why these large-scale migrations took place but Arab names suddenly start to appear in Yemeni inscriptions. The records suggest growing Arab assertiveness against the local clans as their numbers grew. One of them records the ‘war against some of the Arabs on the borders of the tribe Hashid and in some of the lands of the Arabs, Arabs who had acted wrongfully against their lords, the kings of Saba’.7 Note that as I type these words, a Saudi-led coalition pounds the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Under demographic pressure, exacerbated by the breaching of an ancient Sabean dam, some Yemeni groups migrated north into Oman, which was witnessing its own Arab migration. Over time, these two migrations displaced or absorbed the existing Persianized population in Oman. To this day, most Omanis can trace their ancestry to the two migrations; the Yamani clans claim Yemeni origin and the Nizari clans claim central Arabian origin.
The Sabeans were, meanwhile, forced to accept an alliance with the Himyar who, for a while, imposed control over southern Arabia. However, the Himyar were themselves caught between the two great powers of the time—the Sassanian empire of Persia and their bitter rivals, the Byzantines. By this time the Byzantines (that is, the eastern Roman empire with its capital in Constantinople, modern Istanbul) had become enthusiastic and proselytizing Christians, and geopolitics took on a religious colour. The Byzantine emperor Constantius (337–361) dispatched ambassadors and the missionary Theophilus the Indian to the Himyarite court demanding permission to build churches and proselytize.
Ethiopia was one of the countries that was profoundly affected by this churn in geopolitics and religion during AD fourth century. Around the middle of AD fourth century, the Ethiopians captured two Christian teenagers, Frumentius and Edesius from a merchant ship on the Red Sea. They were taken to the capital Aksum where they served as slaves of the king. They soon came to be trusted and, shortly before his death, the king granted them their freedom and promoted them to high office. The widowed queen became dependent on them for running the kingdom and also entrusted the education of her infant son, the new king, to Frumentius.8
The forme
r slaves now used their position to actively promote Christianity, and eventually, under the influence of his tutor, the young king Erazanes too converted to the faith. Thus, Ethiopia came to be a Christian country. This brought it into the cultural and geopolitical sphere of influence of the Byzantines. These changes were clearly noticed by the Indians of that period as they began to refer to the Ethiopians as ‘Krishna Yavana’ or dark Greeks.
In the early sixth century, the Aksum king Ella Asbeha attacked Yemen and placed a Christian king on the Himyar throne. Once the Ethiopians withdrew, there was a revolt against the Christians led by the Jews and the pro-Persian faction, and the country plunged into bloody civil war. A Jewish warlord called Yusuf captured the throne and attacked the chain of fortifications around the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Contemporary accounts tell us that the raid left 12,500 dead and 11,000 captives (and yielded 290,000 sheep, oxen and camels as spoils of war).9
Ella Asbeha was not long in responding. He assembled a large army and a fleet to attack Yemen. Yusuf and his allies were killed and a Christian king was again placed on the throne. The Ethiopians also left behind a garrison and stipulated that the Yemeni had to pay a tribute to Aksum every year. However, soon after Ella Asbeha left, the garrison went rogue and replaced the king with their own candidate. In this way, a complicated civil war laid waste a prosperous country that had given rise to the legend about the Queen of Sheba.
The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History Page 12