On Kings Who Drove Back the Sea: Shipping, Seafaring and Naval Campaigns in the Early Cēra Kingdom

Abstract

This study aims to answer the question whether the ancient Cēra kings sailed the seas and, if so, whether their technology was suitable for crossing the Indian Ocean, while it tries to summarize what we know about shipbuilding in ancient Southwest India. On the following pages, an attempt is made to introduce the most important passages of the Old Tamil Caṅkam literary sources in order to analyse their data in the light of Greek and Latin sources, and of Indian and Mediterranean inscriptions. It can be concluded that although inscriptions of Tamil traders can be found from Egypt to Thailand, and the Cēra kings built a maritime fleet for probably the first time in the history of ancient South India in order to punish their enemy, the kaṭampu tribe by sailing on the seas, their nautical contribution to the long-distance trade of the Arabian Sea as well as their engagement in coastal shipping can be classified as moderate and incidental in the antiquity.