Shipbuilding, Navigation and the Portuguese in Pre-modern India

K.S. Mathew

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351588331
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Marine Transportation
• Index: Technology & Engineering

India, especially coastal India, has a long history of shipbuilding and navigation dating back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Indian shipwrights and the labour force associated with various aspects of shipbuilding excelled in naval architecture. Their native wisdom was adopted by the Europeans engaged in shipbuilding in coastal India. Similarly some of the techniques of navigation followed by Indians were emulated by the European mariners.

A comprehensive peep into the science of naval architecture and navigation is attempted in this work making a comparative study of Indian and Portuguese architecture and navigation.

The volume discusses the importance of the timber grown in the monsoon-fed forests of the Malabar coast and its appreciation by the Portuguese shipwrights and theoreticians of naval architecture. The work shows that increase of the tonnage of ocean-going vessels and the appearance of hostile mariners from other quarters of Western Europe compelled the Portuguese to adopt enhanced technology in naval architecture and navigation. The fact that the use of canons for defence against intruders made the Portuguese vessels stronger than the Indian ships which, for centuries, were accustomed to considerably peaceful navigation is also brought out in this much anticipated volume.

CHAPTER II

Shipbuilding and Navigation in India Prior to 1500

Malabar in the medieval period was blessed with the best suited timber for the manufacture of ships. The Portuguese writers of the sixteenth century used to say that the best variety of timber for building ships was available in Malabar so much so that one could get the impression that ‘nature created them [teak- Tectona grandis or Andira racemosa and Angelim amargosa or Andira vermifuga] for naval architecture’.¹ This prompted the Europeans to set up centres of shipbuilding in various parts of coastal Malabar from the beginning of the sixteenth century. Indian mariners too used to visit various remote areas of the Indian Ocean regions like the East African coast, West Asian regions and even Malacca. This presupposes an expertise in deep sea navigation. On his maiden voyage to Calicut Vasco da Gama met Indian mariners at Melinde. It is reasonably argued that a few of them were from the Malabar coast. The present chapter will discuss aspects of shipbuilding, and then navigation, before the arrival of the Portuguese. First we will have a cursory look at the various indigenous sources throwing light on these aspects.

Sanskrit Sources

The Vedanga Jyotisha of about the fifth century BC, Sanskrit astronomical texts, generally discuss various kinds of instruments for time measurement and astronomical observation.

Aryabhatta in the fifth century AD described variety of interesting instruments.² Brahmagupta in the first quarter of the seventh century devoted an entire chapter of his Brahmasphuta siddhanta for discussing instruments like water clocks of the sinking bowl type, several kinds of sundials with dials projected on plane or hemispherical surface, instruments for measuring altitude like the quadrant and the double quadrant, and so on.³

Yuktikalpataru,⁴ is allegedly from the pen of the polymath Bhoja, who ruled Malwa in the first half of the eleventh century. Scholars have shown that the text was not composed by Bhoja nor has it any value for the history of Indian shipping.⁵

There are two important Sanskrit works dealing with the instruments for astronomical calculation. The first is Yantraratnavali composed by Padmanabha in central India in 1423 and the second, called Yantraprakasha, was written in 1428 by Ramacandra Vajapey in northern India. Yantraratnavali introduces two instruments, one indigenous and the other a variant of the astrolabe. Padmanabha deals with an unusual variety of astrolabe known as the southern astrolabe. He further introduces Dhruvabhramsa yantra, a kind of nocturnal, similar to the European nocturnal. It consists of an oblong metal plate with a horizontal slit at the top. A four-armed index is pivoted to the centre of the plate, around which there are concentric circles containing various scales. With the help of this instrument, one can see the Pole Star and Beta Ursae Minoris through the slit. When these two stars are sighted in a straight line by appropriately tilting the instrument, the arms of the index will point respectively to the sidereal time in ghatis and palas, to the lagna or ascendant for this moment, and to the culminating point of ecliptic. Thus with this instrument one could read off from the dial, for any given moment at night, the corresponding sidereal time, ascendant, and culmination. The reverse side of this instrument usually contained a quadrant (turiya-yantra) for measuring the solar altitude during the day, or a horary quadrant for measuring time directly.

In Yantraprakasha Ramacandra gives a detailed description of a sand clock (kaca-yantra) which measures the Indian time unit, the ghati, of 24 minutes. European sand clocks are made to measure the hour of 60 minutes, its multiples or fractions. The first four chapters of Yantraprakasha speak of the astrolabe. He further introduces the cudayantra to identify sun’s altitude. This is based on the archaic ring dial of Aryabhata and Varahamihira in which the sunlight enters a hole in the breadth of the ring and falls on the inner concave surface on the opposite side, indicating the sun’s altitude.

Tamil Sources

Navoi Sattiram which is a part of the McKenzie collections in the Madras Archives appears to be older than Kappal Sattiram of Tarangambadi at least by a century and a half. This is a Tamil palm leaf manuscript. It has been edited by Soundarapandian in 1995.⁶ This is primarily astrological in nature and refers to boat building. It was written by Trikuta Nambi. It has a couple of stanzas each relating to Maram Vetti Vasthu Shastra (the science of vastu or architecture relating to timber felling), mara kala muhurta (auspicious time for initiating building of a ship) and Era edukka (laying the keel) which goes into details of timber quality such as physical defects, the colour of a freshly cut section of the log and stains.⁷

The Kappal Sattiram, a Tamil treatise, is of 1620. It was written in Tarangambadi and is more useful than Yuktikalpataru. This has been critically edited with introduction by T.P. Palaniyappa Pillai.⁸

Kulatturayyan Kappal Pattu⁹ is a work available in manuscript form written on palm leaf. The work was designed to eulogize Kulathur Manikanda Ayyar, a Brahmin merchant operating in the region of Quilon-Trivandrum coast late in the eighteenth century. Kulathur was located near Kollimalai, otherwise called Accan Koyilayyan near Quilon in south Travancore. This ballad gives us some idea of the wood used in shipbuilding and also about the sails. The craftsmen went in search of suitable trees in the Western Ghats, near Ponmalai, across Podigai hills near Sandanakkadu. The wood chosen by the craftsmen consisted of Vembu (Margosa), Ilupai, Punnai, Krimaruthu, Sirunangu, Aini, Kongu and Naval. These were for the floating bottom. They chose Venteak and teak for side planks and supporting beams, and used ropes and coir for binding the planks. The planks were strengthened by metal plates made of gold and nailed with rubies (pasumponnai ellamorupal tagadakki reddina anitariyittu).

Glues were applied to the sails lest they should change direction on their own. Since the ship was propelled by wind, sails were used. The Kulatturayan Kappal Pattu speaks of sails used for the propulsion of the ship. The ship had several sails (Tiralmiru Irettu Pamaram nirutti).

Cala Vattu Pattu of Nagapattinam-Nagore distinguishes timber as masculine, feminine and eunuch based on log girth.¹⁰

Islamic influence

The making of instruments did not interest Indian astronomers, but interaction with Islamic astronomy paved the way for a substantial change of attitude. An outcome of this interaction is the introduction of the astrolabe into India by Al-Biruni in the eleventh century.¹¹ Muslim scholars from Central Asia migrated to India after the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate. These scholars brought astrolabes with them and used them in India for calendrical and astrological purposes. By the middle of the fourteenth century the astrolabe was well known among the Muslims of north India. There is a long account of the astrolabes manufactured under instructions from Firuz Shah in the Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi, an anonymous chronicle of the period.

Medieval Arab Accounts of Navigation and Shipbuilding

Works of Ibn Majid and Sulaiman al Mahri constitute the earliest Arab accounts of sailors themselves. The sources for the work of Ibn Majid go back to the twelfth century. He was the first to write a work on navigation drawing on his own experience besides the wisdom collected from earliest generations. He belonged to a family of navigators of the northern Indian Ocean. He lived in the latter half of the fifteenth century. He had travelled extensively between East Africa and Malaya including the Red Sea. His best text written in prose is Fawa’ld (AD 1475). He was known to Portuguese chroniclers like Barros and Castanheda as Malami Canaqua. Gabriel Ferrand holds that there is no doubt that Ibn Majid was the Malami Canaqua, the master of astronomical navigation.¹²

Sulaiman Al Mahri lived sixty years after Ibn Majid. He wrote two of his important works, Umda and Minhaj around 1511, in prose. Though his works are not as profound as those of Ibn Majid, they are better organized and orderly compared to the works of Ibn Majid. They reveal the maritime wisdom, skills and techniques of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He deals with the nautical and astronomical concepts, principles and rules that were to be followed.

Work in Turkish Language: Muhit of Sidi Celebi

Sidi Celebi was a Turkish writer and admiral who had been in-charge of Sulaiman the Magnificent’s Indian Ocean fleet (Turkish Ottoman fleet). He wrote the Muhit in 1554 at Ahmedabad in Gujarat in Turkish during his enforced stay there after the dispersal of his fleet in 1554. This work was chiefly a translation from Arabic of several of the works dealing with navigation.¹³ He compiled with care the oral and written records of the Arabs, Persians and the Portuguese navigators. His work translated in English appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal between 1834 and 1839. He deals with the sky and the stars, solar and lunar years, divisions of the compass, rhumbs and tirfa, sea-routes, wind on the high seas, nautical measures, star altitudes, inter-port distances, winds and monsoons, maritime route details, and sea dangers including cyclones, in ten chapters.

Medieval Accounts of Indian Navigation

Sailors (tandels and malmis) in the region of Lakshadweep-Malabar use some manuscripts of sailor guides which go back to the past three or four centuries. They are in the form of Rehmanis and Roznamas. Rehmani is a Persian word meaning a sailor’s manual or guide book of instructions meant for sailors of later date. Roznama is a daily diary or log book of an actual voyage, on a day today basis, giving details of the day’s position of the vessel, weather conditions and other events of importance on board.¹⁴ The Arabic works of Ibn Majid, Suleiman al Mahri and Sidi Celebi are Rehmanis.

Navigational material gathered from Lakshadweep, Malabar and southern Tamil Nadu have been written in Arvi and Arabu- Malayalam (Arabic using Tamil or Malayalam languages). One such Arabu-Malayalam text is in the possession of a Thangal Family in Kavratti.¹⁵

Kannakiyum Cheermakkavum¹⁶ is a ritualistic song related to the worship of Kannaki in certain Sreekurumba shrines of Malabar. It provides some narrative accounts of shipbuilding. The song speaks of the selection of tree made by a Tachan who went to the mountain to build a vessel for a goddess. He made a keel (pandi) from the tree he felled. He arranged nails and copper plates and conducted the auspicious ganapathipooja. The length of the vessel was 40 kol. It was divided into forty compartments. Then several ribs (kal) were fixed at a reasonable distance. The back was covered by planks, and further joined by nails. The Tachan fixed the aniyam (stern). The vessel had seven decks (Tattu). Then he ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• I. Introduction
• II. Shipbuilding and Navigation in India Prior to 1500
• III. The Arrival of the Portuguese in India: Early Interactions
• IV. Portuguese Shipbuilding in India
• V. Portuguese Claims to the Exclusive Domination of the Indian Ocean Regions
• VI. Life on Board a Portuguese Ship of the Sixteenth Century
• VII. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index