The Pulse of India’s Early Trade Artery

Generations of scholars have been keenly interested in the trade and exchanges in the Indian Ocean.

But the Bay of Bengal, a vital and early connector between India and Southeast Asia, has been a relatively neglected realm. Not only spices, textile, rubies, Chinese silk and porcelain but culture and political ideologies have been exchanged between the South China Sea and the Arabian Sea.

This freshly reprinted volume from 1999 assembles 16 rich essays by scholars whose writing rarely go beyond specialized publications. From the travails of the French establishment in 17th and 18th century Bengal to the Portuguese control over the Arabian sea, from the Persianization of the region from Bengal to Malacca (Thai king Narai wore Persian style clothes and his palace was designed by Persian architects), Indo-thai connections in syncretic symbolism in textile — the book is a treasure trove.

Among other things, you will learn that the 11th and 12th centuries marked intense rivalry over China trade between Indian and Southeast Asian merchants and their royal benefactors. Trying to curry favor with the Chinese emperor, Southeast Asia’s Srivijaya monarch donated 600,000 gold pieces for the repair and maintenance of a Taoist shrine in Canton.