The Pull Towards the Coast and Other Essays

This book presents nine essays and two appendices on both, the 'history of ' and the 'history in' the Indian Ocean prior to c.1500 CE by identifying the factors of change and continuity with reference to particular cases and overviews alike. The third largest maritime space, with the subcontinent and Sri Lanka at its centre, the Indian Ocean has been regularly traversed at least since the third millennium BCE. The book discards the notion of the perceived efficacy of Brahmanical taboos against Indic seafaring and the Eurocentric perspective of 'the age of discoveries', in the history of the Indian Ocean.