A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c7.4

c7.4

The peninsula juts out into the Indian Ocean between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal and narrows to a point at Cape Comorin. From Cape Comorin the Malabar and Coromandel coasts extend for a thousand miles, the one to the north-west, and the other at first northward and then to the north-east. There are few good natural harbours along either coast, though the west coast is a little better than the Coromandel coast in This has no object but the the colonization of the rulers; and Childe, maintaining as part of the theory of the colonization this respect, as places like Cochin, Goa and Bombay offer fairly safe anchorages for ships. Located half-way on the maritime routes from the Mediterranean and Africa to China, peninsular India developed and maintained a fairly brisk maritime trade with the nations on either side, and had a large share in the colonization of the eastern lands across the Bay of Bengal. And its rulers, at least some of them like the Sātavāhanas, Pallavas and Cholas, are known to have devoted particular care to the maintenance of a strong navy. The Malabar coast retained for many centuries an unenviable reputation for the piratical activity of its sailors, while the mariners of the Chola country came to be looked upon as authorities on sailing conditions in the Indian Ocean and were cited by the Arab geographers of the Middle Ages. An early account of the ports of peninsular India and the conditions of maritime trade is found in the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea*.