The Most Talked About Unparalleled Kalingan Maritime Trade And VascodaGama

Vasco da Gama and Kalingan Maritime Trade

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Here is the proof of the rich Kalingan Maritime Trade.Boat relief on the Bhoga Mandap temple wall of Lord Jagannath temple,Puri(12th centuryAD, Image: Research Gate

Sun Temple, Konark

When I put the inquiry…” who was the first European to land in India” …to Google, the immediate answer was ” Vasco da Gama”. All the set of history books say that Vasco da Gama was the first European to land in India , which goes way back to 1498.I got confused, I couldn’t believe it. But the Kalingan maritime trade was prevalent much prior to arrival of Vasco da Gama.

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama becomes the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean , when he shows up at Kozhikode (Kerala) on the Malabar Coast. The earlier name or the anglicised name of the city during Britishers period was Calicut. The word calico, a fine variety of hand-woven cotton cloth that was once exported from the port of Kozhikode, is thought to have been derived from Calicut. Vasco de Gama cruised from Lisbon(Portugal) in July 1497, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and anchored at Malindi on the east coast of Africa. It’s also said that Portuguese individuals( not the British) were the first individuals to start oceanic exchange exercises on Indian soil, which is dubious.

Sculpture of an European on the Gopuram

Brihadeeshvara temple, Image: Pinterest

But, it is to the absolute astonishment of each insightful spectators , the model of an European ( most presumably ….because of his hat on head and clothing standard, photograph attached) is distinctly noticeable on the Gopuram of the incomparable Brihadeeswara temple (Declared as World Heritage Site by UNESCO) built in 1010 AD. May be , this sculpture of an European on the Gopuram , was essential for a later fix of the plaster work and not a part of the original construction. When I searched for finding out the authenticity of this sculpture, I found the following fact , which is being believed by the elderly citizens of that locality, though there is no exact record or supporting evidences. 

A British cartographer,  Colonel William Lambton was assigned the work of estimating and planning British India. Lambton chose to have a numerical and geological overview that would cover the entire of india with an organization of triangulation. When reviewing Thanjavur district in 1808, on one event, the huge hardware( may be a theodolite) fixed on the top of the Gopuram of Brihadeeswar temple, tumbled from the highest point and one side of sculptures was gravely damaged.

Lambton needed to go through months fixing it, before he could restart his work. So as a substitute for the damaged sculpture he just made his own face.🤔🤔

 It seems apparent that European people were coming to the court of the king  Raja Raja Chola ( Builder of the Brihadeeswara temple), around 1000 years back.

Brihadeeswara Temple  is a Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Shiva located in South bank of Kaveri river in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the largest South Indian temples and is an excellent illustration of a completely acknowledged Dravidian architecture .

At this juncture,  when I looked for Marco Polo’s visit to Asia(particularly India and China), I tracked down the accompanying data from Britannica… .”Marco Polo’s movements to Asia (1271–95), deified in his Travels of Marco Polo. Marco, his dad, and his uncle set out from Venice in 1271 and arrived at China in 1275. The Polos spent around 17 years in China.” That demonstrates …Marco Polo’s visit to India happened much prior to that of Vasco da Gama. 

Again it is an established fact that Roman and Greek traders frequented the ancient Tamil nations (present day Southern India and Sri Lanka), protecting exchange with the seafaring Tamil people of the Pandyan, Chola and Chera dynasties and building up trading settlements which protected exchange with the Indian subcontinent by the Greco-Roman world since the time of the Ptolemaic dynasty,  much before the beginning of the Common Era or A.D.

This reality has been additionally fortified after the recuperation of Roman gold coins in a few spots of Tamil Nadu. It is to our pleasure that few of the Roman gold coins have also been recovered from the excavated site of the fortified city of Sisupalgada near Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Thus this fact is being strengthened that Kalingan people were having trade relation with Roman people too( not only with South and Southeast Asian countries only) and  that too prior to King Ashok’s invasion in 261 BC. Perhaps Roman maritime merchants were coming through Mediterranean, Red sea and Indian Ocean, because Europeans were not aware about the connectivity of Atlantic Ocean with Indian Ocean through Cape of Good Hope.

In this context, it can be concluded that Europeans traded with and visited India from very early times. The finding of a sea route, via the Cape of Good Hope was the start of comparatively an easy sea borne trade rather than the arduous land routes.

 Boat relief on the Bhoga Mandap temple wall of Lord Jagannath temple,Puri(12th centuryAD, Image: Research Gate

Long before the arrival of Vasco da Gama in India, the Kalingan maritime trade activity was at an all-time high.  The success of the Kalingan maritime traders is inexplicable in the discovery of sea trading routes to many territories located in the eastern( like Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Bali islands of Indonesia) and western Indian Ocean ( like Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles etc. off the African coast) and in the development of trade relations with the indigenous primitive people living there.

As per  available archaeological evidence, ships carrying elephants are displayed on  the Brahmeshwar Temple wall at Bhubaneshwar and the Sun Temple wall at Konark.  An artwork on the Lingaraj Temple wall in Bhubaneswar depicts a giraffe on a  boat , being driven by a woman.

Boat relief on the Brahmeswar temple wall

Image : Research Gate

Sun temple, Konark.13th century

Gifting of a giraffe( not normally seen in Odisha because of adverse climate) by the marine merchants to King Narasimha Dev on the elephant’s back..

Another artwork on  the Konark Sun Temple wall shows that some followers of Langula Narasimha Dev (perhaps Africans) gifting a giraffe to King Narasimha Dev. Since the giraffe isn’t found in the predominant climatic conditions here, it is being speculated that Africans were likewise coming to King Narasimha’s court or giraffes were brought by our mariners to gift their ruler .If you would like to get informed, every time I post something new, then please click the follow button .

Dr. Manoj Mishra

lunarsecstasy@gmail.com