When K. R. A. Narasiah recently spoke at the Stage Archaeology Department's monthly lecture forum on `Early Navigation and Ships of Tamil Nadu', this former Chief Engineer, Ports, and an international maritime consultant, whose hobby is now writing about the historical, showed only two pictures of ships prior to the colonial era. One was a sketch from Colonising Java by K.N. Pannikkar and the other was the picture which appeared in these columns on August 1. The former was based on the bas relief in Borobudur. The latter, Narasiah regretted, when we chatted about his talk, had been rather `abbreviated' in the reproduction. I make good that lapse by reproducing the full picture here, anchor, fish, keel and all. The ship, however, he did not think was an Indian sailing vessel.
Narasiah, who had spent a couple of years with the World Bank in Cambodia, had seen several bas reliefs of ships and sailors in Angkor Wat. These, he had been told, were representations of 12th Century naval battles between the Khmers and the Chams. The former were heirs to a kingdom which drew its inspiration from India, the latter from the Chinese. The Chola maritime tradition, which was the greatest of the Tamil maritime traditions, according to Narasiah, coincided with this period when it was part of Southeast Asian maritime history, with Chola expansionism at the time stretching from Malacca to present-day Vietnam by way of Sumatra and Java.
Predating Chola maritime adventures were the Pallava ships which sailed from Mamallapuam and Mylapore to these lands of the east and which could well have influenced the predecessors of the Khmers. In this context, whether the ships at Angkor Wat were Khmer or Cham, their designing and navigational skills could very well have derived from the Pallavas and the Cholas. Be that as it may, if the Angkor Wat ship in my picture was Khmer or Cham, we are then once again down to one representation anywhere of a pre-colonial Tamil ship, the one at Borobudur. I doubt whether the dhonis found on some Pandya coins could have carried armies as far as the East Indies.
Offering some details about early Tamil maritime history, Narasiah pointed out that outward sailings were in January-February and some of the major ports were between Kodikkarai (Point Calimere) and Tondi. The Archaeological Department has itself been excavating at Korkai and Alangulam, near Ramanathapuram, where they have found several Roman relics. But this tends to draw the focus away from Chola Nadu to Pandya Nadu. But be they Chera, Chola, Pandya or Pallava sailors, they all had a heritage of navigatory skills, using tamed birds to search for shore, the smell of the air, and the rule of thumb ( veral kanakku) to follow the eight major stars and the 48 minor ones.
One thing I forgot to ask Narasiah was the source of timber for early Tamil ships. Iluppai and Punnai are found in Tamaizhagam, but teak? Is teak native to this part of the country, or was it imported? And if so, how?
in the last link mentioned,the author has translated kandalur shala ...as the roads of kandalur? shouldnt it be translated as school ( shalai .sanskrit i/o salai tamil??)