Highest Sageness -33

- Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552)

In 1567 The captain of Rachol Fort in South Goa bragged to his Portuguese king back home, "For nights and nights went on the demolishing, demolishing, demolishing of 280 Hindu temples. Not one remained in the happy lands of our division." Jesuit historian Francisco de Souza jubilantly praised the feat, "It is incredible-the sentiment that the gentile were seized of when they saw their respective temple burning." The astonishing but true fact is that every temple was soon relocated and rebuilt by my countrymen; the murtis, and in some cases the sacred fire, were heroically rescued and reinstated. Chandrakant Keni, a leading Goan poet, says that although Goa's Hindus were put to severe tests as conquerors marched over their lands, they had the resilience to convert "temporary setbacks into permanent victories."
Goa is located on the southwest coast of India between Karnataka and Maharashtra states. It remained a Portuguese colony until forcibly taken by India in 1961. The "Christian presence in Goa-an expression very much in vogue during the evangelistic fury of the Portuguese rulers and padres (priests), particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries-is more visible than vital today, 35 years after liberation. For example, Rodale's Guide to Places of the World describes Goa as "predominantly Catholic," when in reality Hindus, 66% of the 1.2 million populace, far outnumber Christians of all denominations.

The first missionaries realized early on that despite backing of the state ("conversions were made," wrote contemporary Portuguese chroniclers, with "the cross in one hand, the sword in the other"), it was difficult to wean Goans from their primal Hindu beliefs and traditions. I will share a traumatic and rancorous twist of this Hindu stalwartness that involved the splitting up
of my ancestral family. They took a calculated risk: half the family would convert, and the other would escape to Karnataka where other Goan Hindus had settled and been welcomed by the Ikkeri king. The half that remained would safeguard the estate and assets of the migrating half. The calculation was that the Portuguese wouldn't stay in Goa for long-just trade, make money and go. That didn't happen. By the 1800s it was clear the Portuguese would remain. By then, too, the converted half of my family was forced to eat beef and pork and felt they could not return to their primal Hindu faith. They had by then appropriated the estate and assets of the migrated half, rather than lose it to the Inquisition, as the law then stipulated properties belonging to the "heathen" be confiscated.

Noted India cartoonist/illustrator Mario De Miranda confirms his family's fidelity, "I am a Saraswati Brahmin, originally named Sardessai. My ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity around 1600 and renamed Miranda. We still belong to the Shanta Durga temple and yearly present prasad-oil and a bag of rice-a tradition in my family all these years."
Early European travellers, like Venetian epicure Pietro Della Valle who visited Goa in the 1700s, denounced in their travelogues "un-Christian" practices in Catholic churches and shrines in Goa. Rather than create for themselves insurmountable trouble, the padres, particularly the Jesuits, reluctantly rewrote Christian liturgy. For instance, they enthusiastically adopted the Hindu tradition of yatra-in the Goan sense of "procession." Neophytes, according to chroniclers, paraded to their new Catholic shrines, singing as they moved and showering their paths with leaves and flowers, just as they had done only a while earlier as Hindus. To this day kumbhas are used for Catholic processions. At one stage, even the Vatican tersely censured those "gentilic practices" and proliferation of icons in churches. No where, lamented Della Valle, had he seen as much idolatry as in Goan churches. But evangelists, many of them foreigners-the most successful was Saint Francis Xavier-convincingly argued that without ethnic accommodations they were doomed to failure.

Other concessions included retainment of social structures. In 1623 Pope Gregory gave sanction for converted Brahmins to continue wearing their sacred thread and caste marks, and Catholics to this day maintain the Hindu caste system. Till recently, inter- caste marriages among Catholics were frowned upon both by families and the religious  establishment, and though love marriages are increasing, arranged marriage is still preferred. Only Catholics descending from brahmin families were admitted to seminaries until the 17^th century.
Hindu influence is also evident in Goa's Christian art. Icons of Christ have the angular and emaciated features of a Himalayan sadhu, and statues of Mary contain the features of Parvati, Lakshmi or other Hindu deities. Many angels and cherubs sculpted on altars and pulpits of Christian shrines resemble apsaras and gopikas.

At times, the zeal lead to humorous situations. At village Moira, in north Goa, a Siva temple was destroyed and replaced by a church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Apparently, the builder had found the tripartite Sivalinga of the original temple and not knowing its symbolism but realizing its artistic value, used it as a pedestal for the holy water basin. And there it was, from 1636 to 1946, when German indologist Gritle V Mitterwallner noticed it during a monument survey. He decided to move the Sivalinga to the Museum of the Archaeological Survey of India in Old Goa, and paid for a masonry pedestal for the basin.

Obsessed with quick results, Portuguese evangelists brainwashed with a singular lack of concern for substance and almost psychotic emphasis on form. Numbers mattered, not quality. They force-fed Goan converts beef and pork declaring-incorrectly-that the neophytes could never return to Hinduism. They also forced converts to change their lifestyles, but never really thought of teaching the natives basic Christianity. So much so, in the early 1990s Goa Catholic leaders admitted that fundamentalist Christian sects like the "Believers" (akin to Liberation theologians), then on the upswing, were infiltrating the mainstream Catholic community precisely because the community lacked adequate religious foundation. It was realized that only a few had actually ever read or studied the Bible. In fact, the Old Testament had never been translated into Konkani, the mother tongue of Goans and spoken by over 90% of them.

Perhaps this accounts for a current trend, since Goa's liberation, of Catholics' reverting to Hindu practices, seen in several arenas. Many offer prasad at Hindu temples like Fatarpa. Fisherfolk celebrate Nariel Purnima to begin the fishing season and propitiate Samudra Gods with coconut offerings. New babies are given Hindu names, and some adults are now shedding their Catholic names to adopt Hindus ones. Some Catholics observe the 12th day samskara after birth and death. Many women now wear the mangalsutra and forehead bindis, and use mehndi to embellish palms and soles. Indian dress is more fashionable (kurtas, saris, etc.) and rotis (flatbread) are a Catholic staple.

Hindus are culturally strong, but understandably influenced by Christianity. Goans of both communities celebrate together socially at festivals like Divali and Christmas, though essential religious rituals are attended separately. Hindus do not attend Christian churches, though quite a few, particularly of lower castes, in a crisis or in gratitude for favors perceived as granted, propitiate Catholic "miraculous saints." Influence also occurs educationally. The majority of colleges are Catholic and in them Hindu students outnumber Catholic students. Unfortunately, Hindus attending these schools are often subtly weakened in their beliefs.

Having failed to change the Goan psyche, the Portuguese developed a paranoia for appearance. In the 1700s Captain Alexander Hamilton counted eighty churches in the capital alone, and 30,000 priests. "Each church's bells," he wrote, "continually rang with a peculiar power to drive away all evil spirits except poverty in the laity and pride in the clergy." Today, there are 6-700 priests, many churches are closed except for festivals, and old chapels are in disuse.

In contrast, Hindu temples are flourishing. The Bhahujan Samaj, disadvantaged until 1962, is socially and politically powerful. They have established a non-brahmin prelate at the Haturli Mutt (monastery), and the temple under construction there may be worth Rs. ten million ("$290,000) by completion. Other thriving mutts are Partagal and Kavalem. Modern Hindus feel duty-bound to restore their heritage, exemplified by Damodar Narcinva Naik who owns Goa's largest car dealership. Besides starting a movement to popularize Sanskrit, he had the Veling temple and Partagal Mutt rebuilt according to old Hindu architectural norms. And Dattaraj Salgaonkar, a young entrepreneur who recently helped restore the Margao Mutt in South Goa says, "Ibis mutt was demolished by invaders in order to exterminate the Saraswat community and eliminate its influence over many followers." Curiously, when Goans part company with friends or relatives we say "Yetam," which means "I'll come back," not as elsewhere, "Vetam I'm going."

It's our way of expressing hope and optimism.
How the British Looted India 
http://www.ummah.net/history/naval_crusades/india2.htm
  - (please note: this page has been removed)

In 1787 a former army officer wrote: In former times the Bengal countries were the granary of nations, and the repository of commerce, wealth and manufacture in the East...But such has been the restless energy of misgovernment, that within 20 years many parts of those countries have been reduced to desert. The fields are no longer cultivated, extensive tracks are already overgrown with thickets, the husbandman is plundered, the manufacturer (handicraftsman) oppressed, famine has been repeatedly endured and depopulation ensured.
As India became poor and hungry, Britain became richer. Colossal fortunes were made. Robert Clive arrived in India penniless - activities of Company investigated by House of Commons. The Hindi word loot was introduced into English language because of the plunder of India.  Colossal fortunes helped fund Britain's Industrial Revolution e.g.:

1757 - Battle of Plassey
1764 - Hargreaves spinning jenny
1769 - Arkwright's water frame
1779 - Crompton mule (whatever that is)
1785 - Watt's steam engine

When British first reached India they did not find a backwater country. A report on Indian Industrial Commission published in 1919 said that the industrial development of India was at any rate not inferior to that of the most advanced European nations. India was not only a great agricultural country but also a great manufacturing country. It had prosperous textile industry, whose cotton, silk, and woollen products were marketed in Europe and Asia. It had remarkable and remarkably ancient, skills in iron-working. It had its own shipbuilding industry in Calcutta, Daman, Surat, Bombay and
Pegu. In 1802 skilled Indian workers were building British warships at Bombay. According to a historian of Indian shipping the teak wood vessels of Bombay were greatly superior to the oaken walls of Old England. Benares was famous all over India for its brass, copper and bell-metal wares. Other important industries included the enamelled jewellery and stone carving of Rajputana towns as well as filigree work in gold and silver, ivory, glass, tannery, perfumery and papermaking.

All this altered under the British leading to the de-industrialisation of India - its forcible transformation from a country of combined agriculture and manufacture into an agricultural colony of British capitalism. British annihilated Indian textile industry because a competitor existed and it had to be destroyed. Shipbuilding industry aroused the jealousy of British firms and its progress and development were restricted by legislation. India's metalwork, glass and paper industries were likewise throttled when British government in India was obliged to use only British-made paper.
The vacuum created by the contrived ruin of the Indian handicraft industries, a process virtually completed by 1880, was filled with British manufactured goods. Britain's industrial revolution, with its explosive increase in productivity made it essential for British capitalists to find new markets. India turned from exporter of textile or importer. British goods had to have virtually free entry while entry into Britain of India goods was met with prohibitive tariffs. Direct trade between India and the rest of the world had to be curtailed. Horace Hayman Wilson in 1845 in The History of British India from 1805 to 1835 said the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not have contended on equal terms.
While there was prosperity for British cotton industry there was ruin for millions of Indian craftsmen and artisans. India's manufacturing towns were blighted e.g. Decca once known as the Manchester of India, and Murshidabad-Bengal's old capital which was once described in 1757 as extensive, populous and rich as London. Millions of spinners, and weavers were forced to seek a precarious living in the countryside, as were many tanners, smelters and smiths.

India was made subservient to the Empire and vast wealth was sucked out of Economic exploitation was the root cause of the Indian people's poverty and hunger.
Under Imperial rule the ordinary people of India grew steadily poorer. Economic historian Romesh Dutt said half of India's annual net revenues of £44m flowed out of India. The number of famines soared from seven in the first half of 19th Century to 24 in second half. According to official figures, 28,825,000 Indians starved to death between 1854 and 1901. The
terrible famine of 1899-1900 which affected 474,000 square miles with a population almost 60 million was attributed to a process of bleeding the peasant, who were forced into the clutches of the money-lenders whom British regarded as their mainstay for the payment of revenue. The Bengal famine of 1943, which claimed 1.5million victims were accentuated by the authority's carelessness and utter lack of foresight.

Rich though its soil was, India's people were hungry and miserably poor. This grinding poverty struck all visitors - like a blow in the face as described by India League Delegation 1932. In their report Condition of India 1934 they had been appalled at the poverty of the Indian village. It is the home of stark want...the results of uneconomic agriculture, peasant indebtedness, excessive taxation and rack-renting, absence of social services and the general discontent impressed us everywhere..In the villages there were no health or sanitary services, there were no road, no drainage or lighting, and no proper water supply beyond the village well. Men, women and children work in the fields, farms and cowsheds...All alike work on meagre food and comfort and toil long hours for inadequate returns.

Jawaharlal Nehru wrote that those parts of India which had been longest under British rule were the poorest: Bengal once so rich and flourishing after 187 years of British rule is a miserable mass of poverty-stricken, starving and dying people.

India was sometimes called the 'milch cow of the Empire', and indeed at times it seemed to be so regarded by politicians and bureaucrats in London.

Educated Indians were embittered when India was made to pay the entire cost of the India Office building in Whitehall. They were further outraged when in 1867 it was made to pay the full costs of entertaining two thousand five hundred guests at a lavish ball honouring the Sultan of Turkey.

In India, the hunger and poverty experienced by the majority of the population during the colonial period and immediately after independence were the logical consequences of two centuries of British occupation, during which the Indian cotton industry was destroyed, most peasants were put into serfdom (after the British modified the agrarian structures and the tax system to the benefit of the Zamindars - feudal landlords) and cash crops (indigo, tea, jute) gradually replaced traditional food crops. Britain's profits throughout the 19th century cannot be measured without taking into account the 28 million Indians who died of starvation between 1814 and 1901

"Austenizing" of British Atrocities in India (excerpts of article)
By Gideon Polya
http://www.sulekha.com/articledesc.asp?cid=87310

While we are well aware of the selectivity of historians and of the adage "history is written by the victors," we also recognize the truism that "history ignored yields history repeated." Thus with the world already experiencing appalling discrepancies between geopolitically available food and population demand, the deletion of massive man-made famines of British India from history and from general public perception is not merely unethical -- such white-washing also represents a major threat to humanity. Deletion of major man-made catastrophes from history increases the probability that the same underlying, but unaddressed, causes will yield repetition of such disasters.
I have recently published a book -- "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial Rapacity, Holocaust Denial and the Crisis in Biological Sustainability" -- that deals with the two century holocaust of man-made famine in British India and its effective deletion from history. It deals with this "forgotten holocaust" that commenced with the Bengal Famine of 1769-1770 (10 million victims) and concluded with the World War II man-made Bengal Famine (4 million victims) and took tens of millions of lives in between. The lying by omission of two centuries of English-speaking historians continues today in the supposedly "open societies" of the global Anglo culture. This sustained, continuing lying by omission in the sophisticated but cowardly and selectively unobservant culture of the Anglo world has ensured that very few educated people (including Indians) are aware of these massive past realities. In contrast, nearly all are aware of the substantially fictional "Black Hole of Calcutta" of 1756 that demonized Indians and indeed became part of the English language.
Repetition of immense crimes against humanity such as the World War II Holocaust is made much less likely when the responsible society acknowledges the crime, apologizes, makes amends and accepts the injunction: "Never again." However, when it comes to the horrendous succession of massive, man-made famines in British India, no apology nor amends have been made and it is indeed generally accepted that such horrors will be repeated on an unimaginably greater scale in the coming century.
(For the rest of article please go to the above site)
White Man’s Burden: Indian Holocaust 
By A. P. Kamath
2/18/2001
www.rediff.com

In trying to buttress his thesis about the death of 32-61 million people from famines in India, China and Brazil in the 19^th century, author and political activist Mike Davis poses the question: “How do we weigh smug claims about the life-saving benefits of steam transportation and modern grain markets when so many millions, especially in British India, died along railroad tracks or on the steps of grain depots?” 

Davis, a winner of the $315,000 Mac Arthur Foundation grant given annually to “exceptionally creative individuals,” answers his question in the book Late Victorian Holocausts (Published by Verso, $27). Its second title: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World. 

He argues that while the El Nino weather phenomenon contributed to the droughts in the last third of the 19^th century, the death of millions was due to the arrogance and callous policies of imperialist powers. He slams the official British explanation that millions were killed by extreme weather. 

The killer, Davis argues, was imperialism. 

If the governments had made serious efforts to use transportation system to benefit the poor, he says, there would not have been a famine holocaust. He notes that the British  rulers launched public work programs to fight famine in India but the workers, already emaciated, got such poor food that their health deteriorated further. 

Davis asserts that what is known as the Third World today was born in the late 19^th century; the seeds of underdevelopment were sown during the height of imperialism. The price for capitalist modernization and the industrial revolution was paid in the blood and toil of farmers’ lives. 

Mike Davis, 52, is one of the most controversial political writers in America. The son of a meat cutter, Davis dropped out of high school to follow his father’s profession. 

Among his widely discussed books is City of Quartz, a bitter indictment of the whites who run Los Angeles—and the economic disparity and racial politics. His critics have slammed him for exaggerating racial and political issues confronting the city. But his backers see him as a perceptive critic and a conscience keeper who does not hesitate to speak out his mind. 

Winning the Mac Arthur award helped Davis to continue the research that resulted in the present book. Though Late Victorian Holocausts was published by a small avowedly leftist press in New York, it is getting plenty of attention in mainstream publications. 

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who gave it a page-long review in The New York Times Book Review, found the book “gripping” and “highly informative.” 

Where the missionaries come in - Now, Vasco da Gama's misdeeds
By M.V. Kamath
http://www.expressindia.com/columnists/kamath4.htm (link for this article is broken)
Empires of the Monsoon; The History of the Indian Ocean and its invaders; by Richard Hall; Harper Collins; pages 575; 9.99 pounds

Until Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the East in 1497-1499, the "West knew little about India let alone the countries further east. It is not that there was no awareness of India in the West, meaning thereby mainly Europe. Marco Polo had come visiting India and there certainly was a lively trade between north India and central Asia. Indian silk, among other commodities, was justly famous. So were Indian spices. It was India's misfortune that it should have been 'discovered' by a Portuguese sailor with criminal intentions.
Issue of suzerainty
Portugal and Spain towards the end of the 15th Century were at loggerheads as to who should claim suzerainty and where. The pope was invited to give a ruling. According to the Treaty of Tordesillas (signed in June 1494) it was agreed that everything beyond the meridian of longitude passing 370 leagues west of Cape Verde Islands was to be exploited by Spain. All the world to the east of the 'Pope's Line' went to Portugal; this embraced Africa and the entire India Ocean. To say that the Pope of the Catholic Church is not responsible for the atrocities committed by the Portuguese is to fly in the face of facts. And the atrocities committed by Vasco da Gama and his men lives in infamy. The story is one of brutality, betrayal and colonial ambition.
Empires of the Monsoon is a panoramic study of the history of the Indian Ocean and the countries on the ocean's periphery. The monsoon determined ship movements - hence the reference to it in the title of the book. As European invaders, beginning with the Portuguese and were later to include the Dutch, the British and the French, began their terrorist tactics, all the countries on the Indian Ocean Rim began to feel the brutalities of the Europeans. Hall describes them in great detail. The Europeans traded not just in spices; they were very active in the slave trade. The Portuguese captured blacks from East Africa and brought them to Goa. The British literally bought these blacks to be used as soldiers in Sri Lanka.
The first to visit India of course was Vasco da Gama. He came with twenty five ships under his command, of which ten of them contained "much beautiful artillery, with plenty of munitions and weapons! During his visit to Calicut he found twenty trading ships in the harbour. Vasco da Gama plundered them and the 800 odd crew were taken prisoners''.
Notes Hall: With Calicut at his mercy ... da Gama told his men to parade the prisoners then hack off their hands, ears and noses. As the work progressed all the amputated pieces were piled in a small boat. The brahmin who had been sent out by the Zamorin as an emissary was put into the boat amid its new gruesome cargo. He had also been mutilated in the ordained manner". The historian Gaspar Correa is quoted by Hall as to what the da Gama did next, thus: "When all the Indians had thus been executed (sic), he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves and they knocked them down their throats; as they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them and sails to be set for the shore and the vessels set on fire... and the small, vessel with the friar (brahmin) with all the hands and ears, was also sent ashore, without being fired".
Nazi brutality looks like picnic here
Hall gives a vivid description of what Vasco da Gama did next which is too gory even to contemplate. When the Zamorin sent another brahmin to Vasco to plead for peace, "he had his lips cut off and his ears cut off". The ears of a dog were sewn on him instead and the brahmin was sent back to Zamorin in that state. The Brahmin -- no doubt a Namboodiri had brought with him three young boys, two of them his sons and the other a nephew. They were hanged from the yardarm and their bodies sent ashore.
Then there is the story of Alfonso Albuquerque who took his fleet to Goa which had just been vacated by Adil Shah's armed forces which had been sent elsewhere to fight. Albuquerque found Goa at his mercy. Hall writes that at this point Albuquerque "showed all the fondness for atrocities which a lifetime of fighting in Morocco had taught him". He wrote to the king back in Lisbon as follows: "Then I burnt the city and put everyone to sword and for four days your men shed blood continuously. No matter where we found them, we did not spare the life of a single Muslim; we filled the mosque with them and set them on fire...We found that 6,000 Muslim souls male and female, were found dead and many of their foot-soldiers had died. It was a very great deed, Sire". Yes, it was a great deed indeed. Hall suggests that it may well be that Albuqeerque was exaggerating his foul deeds to get approval of his monarch, but adds that "killing certainly came easily to him".
Albuqueque wanted to turn Goa into a Christian city. He had brought along with him Portuguese convicts as his soldiers and now he proceeded to force Goan women, both Hindu and Muslim, to marry these scoundrels. Hall writes with considerable understatement. "The true feelings of the women chosen for this historic innovation are not recorded. Albuquerque was particular about those selected, they had to be good-looking and of white-color. He rejected our of hand, any potential brides from south India as they were darker".
What the Portuguese did elsewhere in the Indian Ocean Rim countries followed on these lines except that the Africans did not have an advanced culture and could thus be captured and sold as slaves. The one thing that linked India with East Africa was the monsoon which the Portuguese navigators relied upon to cross the ocean. If in India the people were unceremoniously killed, the Africans frequently under Arab (and therefore Muslims) leaders fared no better. How the Portuguese conquered East Africa to the accompaniment of much suffering of the African people has to be read to be believed.
Hall recounts the story of exploration and exploitation with an eye for the exotic and a penchant for turth. In the end one wishes Vasco da Gama had stayed at home instead of "discovering India". For that discovery India had to pay a grievous price. With an India now resurgent, it should be its specific task to bring to the Ocean Rim countries a gentler, happier message in contrast to Vasco da Gama's message of wanton cruelty. India must prove to be their balm and comfort.
Invaders Aimed to Dismantle Indian Culture (excerpts)
By Jim Martin
http://www.stephen-knapp.com/speaking_out_against_prejudice.htm
" There are many parts of the world who need humanitarian work, and to do that is fine. However, as a Christian myself, I know and have heard time and time again this ploy as a standard tactic to justify why Christians need to go to India and "Deliver the good news about Jesus" while bringing different kinds of humanitarian help. I have heard this from local churches as well as numerous television evangelical preachers as well, such as Jerry Falwell and others, and then watch them count their success in how many converts they have made. So this is nothing new. And after a while you begin to see through it. To me this seems completely unfair to make such an assumption that illiteracy and poverty are caused by Hinduism, as if Rev. David knows all about the history of India and why it has lost so much of its glory and power, and the immense damage the "Christian British" did to India, and its attempt to dismantle whatever there was of Hinduism and its Vedic literature. Also, how they purposely controlled food production and distribution of commodities in order to turn people to Christianity. How they purposely tried to control and change the Vedic texts to reduce the high standards of living, morality, and its understanding of God so that people would more easily be converted to Christianity, along with so many other things they did."
(For the rest of article please go to the above site). Refer to QuickTime trailer and Part One of the film The God Awful Truth.
Did You Know?
India - The Holy Land
For the Hindus, India is a Holy Land. The actual soil of India is thought by many simple rural Hindus to be the residence of the divinity and, in villages across India, is worshipped and understood to be literally the body of the Goddess, while the features of the Indian landscape - the mountains and forests, the caves and outcrops of rock, the mighty rivers - are all understood to be her physical features. She is Bharat Mata, Mother India, and in her main temple in Varanasi the Goddess is worshipped not in the form of an idol but manifested in a brightly colored map of India. Her landscape is not dead but alive, dense with sacred significance.

There is a Hindu myth that seeks to explain this innate holiness. According to legend, Raja Daksha, the father-in-law of Lord Shiva, failed to invite his son-in-law to an important event. Overcome by shame, the Daksha's daughter, Sati, jumped into a fire and killed herself. Shiva, inconsolable, traversed India in a furious, grief stricken dance, carrying her body. The gods became anxious that Shiva's anguish would destroy the universe, so they dispersed her body bit by bit, across the plains and forests of India. Wherever fragments of her body landed, there was established a tirtha, often a shrine to the Goddess, and in time many of these tirthas became major pilgrimage centers. 
The legend encapsulates a picture of India as a mythologically charged landscape whose holy pilgrimage sites are widely distributed as the body of Sati itself. The idea of India's sacredness is therefore not some Western concept grafted onto the subcontinent in a fit of mystical Orientalism: it is an idea central to India's conception of self. Indeed the idea of India as a sacred landscape predates classical Hinduism, and most importantly, is an idea that was in turn passed onto most of the other religions that came to flourish in the Indian soil.

(source: Sacred India - By William Dalrymple - Lonely Planet Books   p. vi-vii).

Slaughter of Balinese Hindus by the Dutch

Dharma vs. Adharma in Bali

On May 27, 1905, a Chinese steamer was shipwrecked on the beach of Sanur about four miles from Badung. The Balinese looted the wreckage, as they had done for centuries, but the Dutch Government claimed an indemnity of 75 hundred florins from the Rajah of Badung. He considered such a request an insult and refused to pay.

This was the excuse the Dutch were waiting for, and in 2906 they sent an expeditionary force into South Bali. Surrounded on all sides by Dutch troops, the defenders, seeing that their cause was lost, decided to die honorably rather than surrender.

In September 1906, the Dutch launched one of the most shameful and gruesome episodes in colonial history.

During the night of September 20, the Prince set fire to the Palace and the next morning opened the gate. Thousands of Balinese advanced slowly towards the Dutch guns. The men, sparkling with jewels, wore their ceremonial red, black and gold costumes, while the women, carrying their children, wore pure white sarongs, and were also covered with jewels and pearls. On a throne supported by the tallest warriors, the Rajah, a slender young man, sat pale and silent. Suddenly, within fifty yards of the Dutch, the Rajah drew his kris from its scabbard. This was the signal, and the Balinese drew their swords. They shared a curious exaltation at the thought of death. They dedicated themselves, and the sacrifice of their bodies was but the shadow of reality. It was an offering to the gods in the age old struggle between good and evil.

The Dutch Captain gave the order to fire and the slaughter began.

European Imperialism - A Christian Enterprise was backed and blessed by the Pope

The Romanus Pontifex, also issued by Pope Nicholas V in 1455, sanctioned the seizure of non-Christian lands, and encouraged the enslavement of non-Christian people.

Apart from a few babies there were no survivors of the massacre. This was the end – the Dutch were now the masters of all Bali. A similar scene was repeated at the smaller court of Pemecutan in Denpasar. If the Dutch had hoped that events would end there, they were mistaken.

Puputan – a ritual suicide meaning end of a kingdom.
Kshatriya honor

The final act of Bali’s tragedy took place in 1908.  The King of Klungkung carrying his ancestral dagger, the kris, slowly emerged from the palace. His court and more than 200 people accompanying him to face the Dutch. The King knelt down and a Dutch bullet killed the king. His wives knelt around his corpse and drove keris blades into their hearts while the others began the rite of Puputan. Klung kung palace was razed. After nearly 600 years, the Balinese courts that had descended from the Royal Majapahit Empire of Java were gone.

Hindu Bali was now completely under the control of the Dutch Colonists. Today, the Square in Den Pasar, the former Badung, where it took place, has become a football ground.

In 1920 and in 1924, more permits were given to Catholic and Protestant Missionaries to carry on their work in Bali.

After 350 years of Imperialism, in 1945, a republic was proclaimed and the whole archipelago took the name of Indonesia – Islands of India.

(source: Lovers in Paradise - By Barbara Cartland and Insight Guides: Java and Insight Guides: Bali and Lombok).

Seafaring in Ancient India

Western scholars have underestimated India's achievement with regard to commerce, ship-building and navigation, and sea travel. These scholars believed in the Doctrine of Christian Discovery - According to which only Christians could be regarded as discoverers. Hence, the claim that Columbus “discovered” America , or that Vasco da Gama “discovered” India). The people already living on the land did not matter. This colonist bias against Indian culture is fully matched by the Indian 'Marxist historian' bias against Hindu culture. 
India, situated at the central point of the ocean that washes on its coast on three sides, seemed destined very early for a maritime future. In the Rig Veda, a passage (I. 25.7) represents Varuna having a full knowledge of the sea routes, and another (L. 56.2) speaks of merchants going everywhere and frequenting every part of the sea for gain. The Ramayana refers to the Yavan Dvipa and Suvarna Dvipa (Java and Sumatra) and to the Lohta Sayara or the Red Sea. The drama Sakuntala, Ratnavali of King Harsha, Sisupalvadha of Magha, relates stories of sea voyages of merchants and others, and the fabulous literature of India is replete with stories of sea voyages by Hindus. Historian R. C. Majumdar states: "The representation of ship on a seal indicates maritime activity, and there is enough evidence to show that the peoples of the Sindhu valley carried on trade not only with other parts of India but also with Sumer and the centers of culture in Western Asia, and with Egypt and Crete." 
There was a time in the past, when Indians were the masters of the sea borne trade of Europe, Asia and Africa. They built ships, navigated the sea, and held in their hands all the threads of international commerce, whether carried on overland or sea. In Sanskrit books we constantly read of merchants, traders and men engrossed in commercial pursuits. Manu Smriti, the oldest law book in the world, lays down laws to govern commercial disputes having references to sea borne traffic as well as inland and overland commerce. India, according to Chamber's Encyclopedia, "has been celebrated during many ages for its valuable natural productions, its beautiful manufactures and costly merchandise," was, says the Encyclopedia Britannica, "once the seat of commerce." Sir William Jones was of opinion that the Hindus must have been navigators in the age of Manu. Lord Elphinstone has written that "The Hindus navigated the ocean as early as the age of Manu's Code because we read in it of men well acquainted with sea voyages." Ms. Manning, author of Ancient and Mediaeval India writes: "The indirect evidence afforded by the presence of Indian products in other countries coincides with the direct testimony of Sanskrit literature to establish the fact that the ancient Hindus were a commercial people."

Indian traders would set sail from the port of Mahabalipuram, carrying with them cinnamon, pepper and their civilization to the shores of Java, Cambodia and Bali. Like the Western world, the Indian world stretches far beyond its border, though India has never used any violence to spread her influence. Noted historian, R. C. Majumdar observed: "The Indian colonies in the Far East must ever remain as the high watermark of maritime and colonial enterprise of the ancient Indians." It has been proved beyond doubt that the Indians of the past were not, stay-at-home people, but went out of their country for exploration, trade and conquest. Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) a Hungarian, whose valuable researches have added greatly to our knowledge of Greater India, remarks: "The vast extent of Indian cultural influences, from Central Asia in the North to tropical Indonesia in the South, and from the Borderlands of Persia to China and Japan, has shown that ancient India was a radiating center of a civilization, which by its religious thought, its art and literature, was destined to leave its deep mark on the races wholly diverse and scattered over the greater part of Asia."

Introduction
"Do Thou, Whose countenance is turned to
all sides, send off our adversaries as if in a
ship, to the opposite shore: do Thou convey
us in a ship across the sea for our welfare."
                                   - Rig Veda. 1., 97, 7 and 8.
Colonial Bias - Doctrine of Christian Discovery: according to which only Christians could be regarded as discoverers.
Professor A. L. Basham, who reduced India along with her culture to a Wonder land wrote in his book Wonder That Was India has observed that: "certain over-enthusiastic Indian scholars have perhaps made too much of the achievements of ancient Indian seafarers, which cannot compare with those of the Vikings or of some others early maritime peoples." A careful examination indicates that Prof. Basham's assessment is a characteristic example of colonialist bias in Indian historiography. What was the Viking achievement? It is clear that the Vikings, during the period A.D. 800 to A.D. 1200, migrated to all the corners of Europe, they did not influence the people they came in contact with. On the contrary, they lost their identity under the influence of the superior cultures of the lands they visited. 
In comparison to this, both from the qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, what was the Indian achievement? With regard to their contact with Southeast Asia Professor D. P. Singhal remarks: "Indians came into contact with the countries of Southeast Asia principally for commercial reasons. But whatever they settled they introduced their culture and civilization. In turn, they were influenced by the indigenous culture, laying thus the foundation of a new culture in the region. Indian cultural contact with Southeast Asia covers a period of more than thirteen hundred years, and segments of Indian culture even reached eastwards of this region."
(source: India and World Civilization - By D. P. Singhal  p.25).  Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge
Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) a Hungarian and author of several books including Ra`jatarangini: a chronicle of the kings of Kashmir and Innermost Asia : detailed report of explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su, and Eastern Iran carried out and described under the orders of H.M. Indian Government, whose valuable researches have added greatly to our knowledge of Greater India, remarks: 
"The vast extent of Indian cultural influences, from Central Asia in the North to tropical Indonesia in the South, and from the Borderlands of Persia to China and Japan, has shown that ancient India was a radiating center of a civilization, which by its religious thought, its art and literature, was destined to leave its deep mark on the races wholly diverse and scattered over the greater part of Asia."
(source: The Vision of India - By Sisir Kumar Mitra p. 178 and Main Currents of Indian Culture - By S. Natarajan p. 50).
Indians of old were keenly alive to the expansion of dominions, acquisition of wealth, and the development of trade, industry and commerce. The material prosperity they gained in these various ways was reflected in the luxury and elegance that characterized the society. Some find allusion in the Old Testament to Indian trade with Syrian coast as far back as 1400 B.C. Archaeological evidence shows that as early as the eighth century B.C., there was a regular trade relation, both by land and sea, between India on the one hand and Mesopotamia, Arabia, Phoenica, and Egypt on the other. (For more information refer to chapter on India and Egypt). The Chinese literary texts refer to maritime and trade activity between India and China as far back as the seventh century B. C. Recent excavations in Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and Indonesia confirm of early and extensive trade which continued down to the historical period. It was this naval supremacy that enabled Indians to colonize the islands in the Indian Archipelago. Shortly, after, there grew up a regular traffic between India and China, both by land and sea. India also came in close contact with the Hellenic world. We learn from ancient authority that in the processions of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.) were to be found Indian women, Indian hunting dogs, Indian cows, also Indian spices carried on camels, and that the yachts of the ruler of Egypt had a saloon lined with Indian stones. Everything indicates that there was a large volume of sea-trade between India and the western countries as far as African coast. From the coast the goods were carried by land to the Nile, and then down the river to Alexandria which was a great emporium in those days.
There was a mercantile colony of Indians in an island off the African coast in the first century A.D. The adventurous spirit of the Indians carried them even as far as the North Sea, while their caravans traveled from one end of Asia to the other.
(source: Ancient India - By R. C. Majumdar p. 210-216). For more refer to chapter on Sacred Angkor

On journeys by sea there were jalaniryamakas – guides who could predict the behavior of waters. In the sea coast town of Shurparak, there was an arrangement to train persons with the help of Niryamak Sutras. According to these, those person who traveled together in a ship were called sanyatrika. In the Mahajanaka Jatak, there is a dialogue between a person swimming in the ocean and Goddess Mani Mekhala who was the presiding deity of sea-journeys. 

“Who is this person, who in an ocean which knows no bound is trying to swim with his hands? On whose reliance are you doing this exercise?
“O Goddess, I believe that one should do the exercise as long as it is possible. So I am doing this exercise though I do not see the shore.” 

In this way the dialogue continues with the swimmer continuing to gather courage hoping against hope. Mani Mekhala was the Goddess whose influence obtained from Kanya Kumari to the island of Katah. There was a huge temple dedicated to her in Puhara where the Kaveri joined the sea.

(source: Hinduism: Its Contribution to Science and Civilization - By Prabhakar Balvant Machwe  Vikas Publishing House 1979 ISBN 0 7069 0805 8  p. 129).

omparing the achievements of the Indians and the Chinese in Southeast Asia. T. V. Mahalingam observes: "Though China also exercised a considerable influence over countries of Southeast Asia, Indian influence was more effective and durable for the Chinese always remained colonies of foreigners with little inclination to mix with the local population and in contrast to what the Hindus achieved, there is nowhere any trace of the taking-over of Chinese culture by the children of the soil."
His views have been upheld by John F. Cady who concluded that: "Indian cultural patterns in particular became widely disseminated during the early centuries A.D., while Chinese influence, although culturally less contagious, virtually dominated from Sung times (960 and later) the trade and politics of the eastern seas." 
(source: History of post-war Southeast Asia - By John F. Cady 1964. p. VI).

Amaury de Riencourt wrote: "The brightest sun shining over Southeast Asia in the first centuries A.D. was Indian Civilization. Waves of Indian colonists, traders, soldiers, Brahmins and Buddhist beat upon one Southeast shore after another. Great military power based on superior technical knowledge, flourishing trade fostered by the remarkable increase in maritime exchanges between India and these areas, the vast cultural superiority of the Indians, everything conspired to heighten the impact of the Indian Civilization on the Southeast Asian. Passenger ships plied regularly between the Ganges, Ceylon and Malaya in the middle of the first millennium A.D. Indian settlers from Gujarat and Kalinga colonized Java, for instance, while others set out for Burma or Cambodia. Old Indian books – the Kathasagara, the Jatakas and others – refer to these wondorous regions that set the imagination of civilized Indians on fire, to Suvarnabhumi, the fabulous “Land of Gold.” On the whole, the Indianization of Southeast Asia proceeded peacefully. Local chiefs and petty chieftains were admitted into the caste structure as Ksatriyas through a ritual known as vratyastoma, performed by an Indian Brahmin.  All over Southeast Asia tremendous ruins are strewn, testifying to the immense influence of Indian Civilization."

(source: The Soul of India - By Amaury de Riencourt p.158-162.  For more on Greater India, refer to chapter on Suvarnabhumi).
Refer to India once ruled the Americas! – By Gene D Matlock  

Ancient Indians knew Atlantic Ocean

Buddhist Jataka stories wrote about large Indian ships carrying seven hundred people. In the Artha Sastra, Kautilya wrote about the Board of Shipping and the Commissioner of Port who supervised sea traffic. The Harivamsa informs that the first geographical survey of the world was performed during the period of Vaivasvata. The towns, villages and demarcation of agricultural land of that time were charted on maps. Brahmanda Purana provides the best and most detailed description of world map drawn on a flat surface using an accurate scale. Padma Purana says that world maps were prepared and maintained in book form and kept with care and safety in chests.

Surya Siddhanta speaks about construction of wooden globe of earth and marking of horizontal circles, equatorial circles and further divisions. Some Puranas say that the map making had great practical value for the administrative, navigational and military purposes. Hence the method of making them would not be explained in general texts accessible to the public and were ever kept secret. Surya Siddhanta says that the art of cartography is the secret of gods. This being the general thinking at those times, yet, there was one group of people who realized that the maps or the secret texts that contained the geographical surveys will not last a very long time. Only cryptology using words and names would last longer than any.

(source: Ancient Indians knew Atlantic Ocean - By Dr. V.Siva Prasad Retired Professor of Engineering. Andhra University, India).

Allusions to Maritime Activity in Sanskrit Literature
All the universe rests within your nature, in the ocean,
in the heart, in all life.   - Rig Veda IV. 58. 11
There are a number of terms in the Rig Veda that mean ocean or sea. "Samudra" the main term in classical Sanskrit for the ocean, is very common in the Rig Veda and this meaning for it makes sense in all passages. The symbolism of ships is as pervasive in the Vedas as that of the sea, which it tends to reinforce. The saving action of Agni, the sacred fire, is frequently compared to a ship that carries us across the river or sea. 
As a ship across the river (or sea), Agni takes us across to safety (I. 97.8). Vedic culture was a maritime culture, the Vedic people lived by the sea for some time before the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed.

(source: Gods, Sages, and Kings - By David Frawley p. 43-64).
The Indians built ships, navigated the sea and monopolized the international trade both by sea route and land route. Indian literature furnishes evidence with innumerable references to sea voyages and sea-borne trade and the constant use of the ocean as the great highway of international intercourse and commerce. 
Rig Veda
The oldest evidence on record is supplied by the Rig Veda, which contains several references to sea voyages undertaken for commercial purposes. One passage (I. 25.7) represents Varuna having a full knowledge of the sea routes, and another (I. 56.2) speaks of merchants, under the influence of greed,  going sending ships to foreign countries. A third passage (I. 56.2)mentions merchants whose field of activity known no bounds, w ho go everywhere in pursuit of gain, and frequent every part of the sea. The fourth passage (VII. 88.3 and 4) alludes to a voyage undertaken by Vasishtha and Varuna in a ship skillfully fitted out, and their "undulating happily in the prosperous swing." The fifth, which is the most interesting passage (I. 116. 3), mentions a naval expedition on which Tugra the Rishi king sent his son Bhujyu against some of his enemies in the distant islands; Bhujyu, however, is ship wrecked by a storm, with all his followers, on the ocean, "where there is no support, no rest for the foot or the hand," from which he is rescued by the twin brethren, the Asvins, in their hundred-oared galley. The Panis in the Vedas and later classical literature were the merchant class who were the pioneers and who dared to set their course from unknown lands and succeeded in throwing bridges between many and diverse nations. The Phoenicians were no other than the Panis of the Rig Veda. They were called Phoeni in Latin which is very similar to the Sanskrit Pani. 

Among other passages may be mentioned that which invokes Agni thus: "do thou whose countenance is turned to all sides send off our adversaries as if in a ship to the opposite shores; do thou convey us in a ship across the sea for our welfare"; or that in which Agni is prayed to bestow a boat with oars."
The Ramayana also contains passages which indicate the intercourse between India and distant lands by the way of the sea. In the Kishkindha Kandam, Sugriva, the Lord of the Monkeys, in giving directions to monkey leaders for the quest of Sita, mentions, all possible places where Ravana could have concealed her. In one passage he asks them to go to the cities and mountains in the islands of the sea, in another the land of the Koshakarsa, is mentioned as the likely place of Sita's concealment, which is generally interpreted to be no other country than China (or the land where grows the worm which yields the threads of silken clothes); a third passage refers to the Yava and Dvipa and Suvarna Dvipa, which are usually identified with the islands of Java and Sumatra of the Malaya Archipelago; while the fourth passage alludes to the Lohita Sagara or the red sea. In Ayodhya Kandam there is even a passage which hints at preparation for a naval fight, thus indirectly indicating thorough knowledge and universal use of waterway. The Ramayana also mentions merchants who trafficked beyond the sea and were in the habit of bringing presents to the king
In The Mahabharata the accounts of the Rajasuya sacrifice and the Digvijaya of Arjuna and Nakula mention various countries outside India with which she had intercourse. There is a passage in its Sabha Parva which states how Sahadeva, the youngest brother of the five Pandavas, went to the several islands in the sea and conquered the Mlechchha inhabitants thereof. the well known story of the churning of the ocean, in the Mahabharata, in the boldness of its conception is not without significance. In the Drona Parva there is a passage alluding to shipwrecked sailors who "are safe if they get to an island." In the same Parva there is another passage in which there is a reference to a "tempest-tossed and damaged vessel in a wide ocean." In the Karna Parva we find the soldiers of the Kauravas bewildered like the merchants "whose ships have come to grief in the midst of the unfathomable deep." There is another sholka in the same Parva which describes how the sons of Draupadi rescued their maternal uncles by supplying them with chariots, "as the shipwrecked merchants are rescued by means of boats." In the Santi Parva the salvation attained by means of Karna and true knowledge is compared to the gain which a merchant derives from sea-borne trade. But the most interesting passage in the Mahabharata is that which refers to the escape of the Pandava brothers from the destruction planned for them in a ship that was secretly and especially constructed for the purpose under the orders of the kind-hearted Vidura. The ship was a large size, provided with machinery and all kinds of weapons of war, and able to defy storms and waves. 
But besides the epics, the vast mass of Sutra literature also is not without evidence pointing to the commercial connection of India with foreign countries by way of the sea. That these evidences are sufficiently convincing will  probably be apparent from the following remarks of the well-known German authority, the late Professor Buhler: "References to sea voyages are also found in two of the most ancient Dharam Sutras. 

Manu Smriti
In Sanskrit books we constantly read of merchants, traders and men engrossed in commercial pursuits. Manu Smriti, the oldest law book in the world, lays down laws to govern commercial disputes having references to sea borne traffic as well as inland and overland commerce. Manu (iii. 158) declares a Brahmin who has gone to sea to be unworthy of entertainment at a Shraddha. In chapter viii again of Manu's Code there is an interesting sloka laying down the law that the rate of interest on the money lent on bottomry (The lender of money for marine insurance) is to be fixed by men well acquainted with sea voyages or journeys by land. In the same chapter there is another passage which lays down the rule of fixing boat-hire in the case of a river journey and a sea voyage. But perhaps the most interesting passages in that important chapter are those which are found to lay down the rules regarding what may be called marine insurance. One them holds the sailors collectively responsible for the damage caused by their faults to the goods of passengers, and other absolves them from all responsibility if the damage is caused by an accident beyond human control. 
Sir William Jones is of opinion that the Hindus "must have been navigators in the age of Manu, because bottomry (The lender of money for marine insurance) is mentioned in it. In the Ramayana, the practice of bottomry is distinctly noticed. "

(source: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for 1901).
Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone has written: "The Hindus navigated the ocean as early as the sage of Manu's Code, because we read in it of men well acquainted with sea voyages."
(source: History of India - By Mountstuart Elphinstone   London: John Murray Date of Publication: 1849 p. 166).
In Yajnavalkya Samhita there is a passage which indicates that the Hindus were in the habit of making adventurous sea voyages in pursuit of gain. The astronomical works also are full of passages that hint at the flourishing condition of Indian shipping and shipbuilding and the development of sea-borne trade.

Thus the Brihat Samhita has several passages of this kind having an indirect bearing on shipping and maritime commerce. One of these indicate the existence of shippers and sailors as a class whose health is said to be influenced by the moon. Another mentions the stellar influences affecting the fortunes of traders, physicians, shippers, and the like. The third, also, mentions a particular conjunction of stars similarly affecting merchants and sailors. The last one is that which recommends as the place for an auspicious sea-bath the seaport where there is a great flow of gold due to multitudes of merchantmen arriving in safety, after disposing of exports abroad, laden with treasure.
Puranas
The Puranas also furnish references to merchants engaged in sea-borne trade. The Varaha Purana mentions a childless merchant named Gokarna who embarked on a voyage for trading purposes but was overtaken by a storm on the sea and nearly shipwrecked. The same Purana contains a passage which relates how a merchant embarked on a voyage in a sea-going vessel in quest of pearls with people who knew all about them. 
But besides the religious works like the Vedas, the Epics, and the Sutras and Puranas, the secular works of Sanskrit poets and writers are also full of references to the use of the sea as the highway of commerce, to voyages, and naval fights. Thus in Kalidasa Raghuvamsa (canto 4, sloka 36) we find the defeat by Raghu of a strong naval force with which the kings of Bengal attacked him, and his planting the pillars of victory on the isles formed in the midst of the river Ganges. The Shakuntala also relates the story of a merchant named Dhanavriddhi whose immense wealth devolved to the king of the former's perishing at sea and leaving no heirs behind him. In Sakuntala, we learn of the importance attached to commerce, where it is stated: "that a a merchant named Dhanvriddhi, who had extensive commerce had been lost at sea and had left a fortune of many millions." In Nala and Damyanti, too, we meet with similar incidents.
The Sisupalavadha of the poet Magha contains an interesting passage which mentions how Sri Krishna, while going from Dvaraka to Hastinapura, beholds merchants coming from foreign countries in ships laden with merchandise and again exporting abroad Indian goods. 
The expansion of Indian culture and influence both towards Central Asia and the south-east towards the countries and islands of the Pacific is one of the momentous factors of the period immediately preceding the Christian era. From the first century A.D. a systematic policy of expansion led to the establishment of Hindu kingdoms in Annam, Cochin-China, and the islands of the Pacific. The Ramayana knew of Java and Sumatra. Communication by sea between the ports of south India and the islands of the Pacific was well established many centuries before the Christian era. The discovery and colonization of Sumatra, Java and Borneo were the results of oceanic navigation. The allusions in the Ramayana to Java and Ptolemy's mention of Yava-dwipa in the first century A.D. clearly establish the fact that Java had come under Indian influence at least by the beginning of the Christian era. 
The reaction of this overseas activity on India was very considerable. An explanation of the immense wealth of the merchants who made such munificent endowments as witnessed by the inscriptions in the temples of the Satvahana period lies in the great overseas trade. Tamil literature of the first centuries, especially Silappadikaram and Manimekhalai also testify to this great overseas trade while in Kalidasa we have the allusion to ships laden with spices from distant lands lying in Kalinga ports.
(source: India Through The Ages - By K. M. Panikkar Discovery Publishing House. Delhi 1985. p.84- 93).
Some passages in Rig Veda
"May Usha dawn today, the excitress of chariots which are harnessed at her coming, as those who are desirous of wealth send ships to sea."
"Do thou, Agni, whose countenance is turned to all sides, send off our adversaries, as if in a ship to the opposite shore. Do thou convey us in a ship across the sea for our welfare." (A remarkable prayer for safe conduct at sea).
The Hitopadesha describes a ship as a necessary requisite for a man to traverse the ocean, and a story is given of a certain merchant, "who, after having been twelve years on his voyage, at last returned home with a cargo of precious stones."
The Institutes of Manu include rules for the guidance of maritime commerce. Thus, the passage quoted above indicate a well developed and not a primitive trade.
Significant also is the fact that Lieutenant Speake, when planning his discovery of the source of the Nile, secured his best information from a map reconstructed out of Puranas. (Journal, pp. 27, 77, 216; Wilford, in Asiatic Researches, III). It traced the course of the river, the "Great Krishna," through Cusha-dvipa, from a great lake in Chandristhan, "Country of the Moon," which it gave the correct position in relation to the Zanzibar islands. The name was from the native Unya-muezi, having the same meaning; and the map correctly mentioned another native name, Amara, applied to the district bordering Lake Victoria Nyanza.
"All our previous information," says Speake, "concerning the hydrography of these regions, originated with the ancient Hindus, who told it to the priests of the Nile; and all these busy Egyptian geographers, who disseminated their knowledge with a view to be famous for their long-sightedness, in solving the mystery which enshrouded the source of their holy river, were so many hypothetical humbugs. The Hindu traders had a firm basis to stand upon through their intercourse with the Abyssinians."
(source: Periplus of the Erythrean Sea - W.H. Schoff p. 229-230.  For more information refer to chapter on India and Egypt)
The Jatakas
Some very definite and convincing allusions to sea voyages and sea-borne trade are also contained in the vast body of Buddhist literature known as the Jatakas, which are generally taken to relate themselves to a period of one thousand years beginning from 500 B.C. E. The Baveru Jataka without doubt points to the existence of commercial intercourse between India and Babylon in pre-Ashokan days. The full significance of this important is thus expressed by the late Professor Buhler: "The now well-known Baveru-Jataka, to which Professor Minayef first drew attention, narrates that Hindu merchants exported peacocks to Baveru. The identification of Baveru with Babiru or Babylon is not doubtful," and considering the "age of the materials of the Jatakas, the story indicates that the Vanias of Western India undertook trading voyages to the shores of the Persian Gulf and its rivers in the 5th, perhaps even in the 6th century B.C. just as in our days. This trade very probably existed already in much earlier times, for the Jatakas contain several other stories, describing voyages to distant lands and perilous adventures by sea, in which the names of the very ancient Western ports of Surparaka-Supara and Bharukachcha-Broach are occasionally mentioned."
(source: source: Indian Shipping: A History of the Sea-Borne Trade and Maritime Activity of the Indians From the Earliest Times - By R. K. Mookerjee  p. 437-54)
Ms. Manning, author of Ancient and Mediaeval India Volume II, p. 353, writes: "The indirect evidence afforded by the presence of Indian products in other countries coincides with the direct testimony of Sanskrit literature to establish the fact that the ancient Hindus were a commercial people."
(source: Ancient and Medieval India - By Mrs. Manning Volume II p. 353).
Sudas is stated in the Aitteriya Brahmana to have completely conquered the whole world. This conquest was not political; it means exploration of the whole earth. Puruvara navigated the ocean and explored 13 islands.

(source: Historical Researches - Heeran Volume II p. 266. 
Colonel James Tod  (1782-1835) author of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India, says that one of the ancestors of Rama was Sagara also called the Sea-King whose sixty thousand sons were so many mariners.

(source: Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India ISBN 8120612892 Vol. II p. 602).
Sir William Jones wrote: " of this cursory observation on the Hindus which it would require volumes to expand and illustrate this is the result that they had an immemorial affinity with old Persians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks and Tuscans, the Scythians or Goth and Cilts, the Chinese, Japanese and Peruvians."
(source: Asiatic Researches Volume I p. 426). For more information refer to chapter on India and Egypt)

There are references in Buddhist Jataka tales to ships sailing from Bhrigukachcha to Baveru (Babylon); in the Pali book Questions of Milinda, a merchant is described as having sailed to Alexandria, Burma, Malaya and China. Another story of the 6^th and 7^th century tells of a merchant having sailed to the “Island of Black Yavanas” maybe Zanzibar.  

(source: Hinduism: Its Contribution to Science and Civilization - By Prabhakar Balvant Machwe p. 129 - 130).

Professor Max Duncker, author of History of Antiquity, says, that ship-building was known in ancient India about 2000 B.C. It is thus clear that the Hindus navigated the ocean from the earliest times, and that they carried on trade on an extensive scale with all the important nations of the whole world.
A. M. T. Jackson writes: "The Buddhist Jatakas and some of the Sanskrit law books tell us that ships from Bhroach and Supara traded with Babylon (Baveru) from the 8th to the 6th century B.C."
(source: Bombay City Gazetteer, Vol. II, chapter IV, p.3).
Rev. J. Foulkes says: "The fact is now scarcely to be doubted that the rich Oriental merchandise of the days of King Hiram and King Soloman had its starting place in the seaports of the Deccan, and that with a very high degree of probability some of the most esteemed of the spices which was carried into Egypt by the Midianitish merchants of Genesis."
(source: The Indian Antiquary, Vol. VIII). 
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren (1760-1842) writes: "The Hindus in their most ancient works of poetry are represented as a commercial people." 
Dr. Caldwell says: "It appears certain from notices contained in the Vedas that Aryans of the age of Solomon practiced foreign trade in ocean-going vessels."

In G. Buhler's opinion, "prove the early existence of a complete navigation of the Indian Ocean, and of the trading voyages of Indians."
(source: Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet - By G. Buhler  1898 p. 84).

Thus, Sanskrit literature in all its form - such as the Vedas, the Epics, the Sutras, the Puranas, poetry epic and dramatic romance etc. is replete with references to the maritime trade of India, which prove that the ocean was freely used by the Indians in ancient times as the great highway of international commerce. Further, the evidence from Sanskrit literature receive their confirmation again from the evidence furnished by the Buddhistic literature - the canonical books, and the Jatakas. 

Will Durant (1885-1981) American historian, would like the West to learn from India, tolerance and gentleness and love for all living things. He has observed:

"Indian art had accompanied Indian religion across straits and frontiers into Sri Lanka, Java, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, Tibet, Khotan, Turkestan, Mongolia, China, Korea and Japan; 

“in Asia all roads lead from India.”   

(source: Story of Civilization: Our Oriental Heritage - By Will Durant MJF Books. 1935. p. 605).

Sea Trade
Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931), British diplomat and colonial administrator, in his book, Hinduism and Buddhism vol. I, p.12. says:
In Eastern Asia the influence of India has been notable in extent, strength and duration. "Scant justice is done to India's position in the world by those European histories which recount the exploits of her invaders and leave the impression that her own people were a feeble dreamy folk, surrendered from the rest of mankind by their seas and mountain frontiers. Such a picture takes no account of the intellectual conquests of the Hindus. Even their political conquests were not contemptible and were remarkable for the distance if not for the extent of the territory occupied. For there were Hindu kingdoms in Java and Camboja and settlements in Sumatra and even in Borneo, an island about as far from India as is Persia from Rome."

Om Tat Sat

                                                        

(Continued...) 

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