Maritime Cities & Coastal Societies in South Asia by Ranabir Chakravarti

Maritime cities and coastal societies in South Asia (600–1300 CE)

By Ranabir Chakravarti

This talk will highlight the distinctiveness of the coastal entities from and also their interlocking with the mainland of South Asia through seven centuries (c. 600–1300 CE). This is to make a plea to consider the making of the subcontinental societies and cultures not merely in relation to its vast landmass, but also in the light of its two long coastlines, jutting into the Indian Ocean. While the coastal tracts obviously stand at the fringe of the landmass, these assume salience in the Indian Ocean maritime network of commercial and cultural exchanges. It is only natural that the coasts would be open to interactions among diverse communities, — following a variety of belief systems, cultural practices and social norms — with the local host societies. The accommodation and promotion of pluralities in coastal societies, resulting out of competitions, contestations and negotiations alike, are perhaps more visible than in the case of agrarian societies in the interiors.

The theatre of the practice of socio-economic and cultural pluralities in the coast was the port (velakula in Sanskrit, velapuram and pattanam/pattinam in Tamil). Both the sea-boards of India were dotted with numerous vibrant ports. Many of these ports assumed urban characters. Taking the cue from Ashin Das Gupta’s analytical category of maritime cities (in preference to the labels of port cities and ports of trade), we would also like to apply the yard-stick of the concept differentiated spaces, following BD Chattopadhyaya, to examine the ‘citiness’ of these sites. The differentiated spaces of the maritime cities were geared to the multiplicity of functions witnessed at these coastal sites. Evidently all the ports did not become maritime cities. The talk will present case studies by looking at maritime cities (Somanatha, Sanjan, Sopara, Kochi, Nagapattanam, Kaveripattinam, Nagarjunakonda, Tamralipta and Samandar, for example) on both the sea-boards during the seven centuries on the basis of a variety of primary sources — literary, epigraphic, field archaeological and visual materials.

About the speaker:

Ranabir Chakravarti, Retired Professor of Ancient History, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India), specialises in social and economic history of early India with a particular interest in Indian Ocean maritime history.