Indians first to ride monsoon winds

Telegraph India ^ | Tuesday , April 19 , 2011 | G.S. Mudur

[SunkenCiv]

New Delhi, April 18: Mariners from India's east coast exploited monsoon winds to sail to southeast Asia more than 2,000 years ago, an archaeologist has proposed, challenging a long-standing view that a Greek navigator had discovered monsoon winds much later.

Sila Tripati at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, has combined archaeological, meteorological, and literary data to suggest that Indian mariners were sailing to southeast Asia riding monsoon winds as far back as the 2nd century BC.

A 1st century AD Greek text, Periplus of the Erythreaean Sea, and a contemporary Roman geographer named Pliny have claimed that the Greek navigator, Hippalus, discovered the monsoon winds and the route across the Arabian Sea to India around 45 AD.

But Tripati has now used multiple lines of evidence -- from inscriptions on ancient Indian coins to bronze pottery from an archaeological site in western Thailand -- to question that claim and argue that mariners of India's east coast knew about the monsoon winds perhaps about 200 years before Hippalus. Tripati's research is published in the journal Current Science from the Indian Academy of Sciences.

[SunkenCiv]

• The Voyage around the Erythraean Sea
• When In Vietnam, Build Boats As The Romans Do

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Antiquity Journal  & archive  Archaeologica  Archaeology  Archaeology Channel  BAR  Bronze Age Forum  Discover  Dogpile  Eurekalert  Google  LiveScience  Mirabilis.ca  Nat Geographic  PhysOrg  Science Daily  Science News  Texas AM  Yahoo  Excerpt, or Link only?	I very much doubt that the monsoon wind navigation was figured out as recently as this, nor do I think that most people believe the Greeks discovered it. Number one, Madagascar was colonized by people from Borneo; number two, the Sumerians arrived in Mesopotamia from the sea, and as a large-scale migration they probably had prior knowledge of the seasonal winds -- over 5000 years ago. Have a great week, all! To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
· History topic · history keyword · archaeology keyword · paleontology keyword · · Science topic · science keyword · Books/Literature topic · pages keyword ·

[JoeProBono]

[Sherman Logan]

What a non-controversy!

One group says a Greek discovered one could sail from Arabia to west India and back using the monsoon.

The other discovered one could sail the other direction and back from east India.

In all likelihood neither group knew the other existed or that the winds involved are part of the same system.

[colorado tanker]

Good points. Also, Hinduism goes back into the B.C. era in Southeast Asia. It’s a heck of a lot easier to travel between there and India by sea rather than land.

[SunkenCiv]

Buddhism (6th c BC to present) also spread all over, rapidly, and after a brief flourish mostly died out in India itself, surviving most strongly in other lands that traded with India.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice example of one!

[colorado tanker]

You can see vestiges of the old Hindu influence in architecture in places like Angkor. Of course, somehow Hinduism actually survived on the island of Bali.

[Beowulf9]

SONG OF INDIA ~ Mario Lanza

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov / Modern Lyrics: Johnny Mercer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yua3bdXQjzU

And still the snowy Himalayas rise
In ancient majesty before our eyes,
Beyond the plains, above the pines,
While through the ever, never changing land
As silently as any native band
That moves at night, the Ganges Shines

Then I hear the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven’s wing;
High upon a minaret I stand
Upon an old enchanted land,
There’s the Maharajah’s caravan,
Unfolding like a painted fan,
How small the little race of Man!

See them all parade across the ages,
Armies, Kings and slave from hist’ry’s pages,
Played on one of nature’s vastest stages.
The turbaned Sikhs and fakirs line the streets,
While holy men in shadowed calm retreats
Pray through the night and watch the stars,
A lonely plane flies off to meet the dawn,
While down below the busy life goes on,
And women crowd the old bazaars;

All are in the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven’s wing;
Tune the ageless moon and stars were strung by,
Timeless song that only could be sung by
India, the jewel of the East.