Abstract: Gujarat’s engagement in the international trade network from very early times is well known. The long coastline, dotted with ports, made this engagement with West Asia, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and China possible. These ports along with their hinterlands were major participants in the Indian Ocean trade, as demonstrated in recent studies. The important ports of Gujarat in the historical period were Broach, Cambay, Diu and Surat among many others which reflect Gujarat’s long engagement with the Sea. The port of Broach has the longest history of all the ports in the west coast of India. The vibrant descriptions of Barygaza in the The Periplus Maris Erythraei need no reiteration. The Jātaka references are indicative enough of the continuation of trading activities from Bharukaccha in around 3rd century and the inscriptions from Socotra suggests continuous movement from Bharukaccha to the west. Srilanka was always a part of this network. Cosmas who writes around 6th century CE is silent about Barygaza and speaks of nearby Kalyan as an important port. This tallies well with the inscriptional evidence where we find that Bharukaccha became more of an administrative centre. The scene changes between 11th and 12th centuries where we have sources which talks about the vibrant character of Bharuch as a port town. Of particular importance is the fact that the port resurfaces as a point of departure for long distance trade in the Moharājaparājaya, a drama written in Prakrit by Yasahpāla during the time of Kumārapāla of the Caulukya dynasty (1144-1174 CE). This play introduces us to Anahilapura/Anahilavada/Nahrawar, capital of the Caulukya/Chalukya/Solanki dynasty that ruled Gujarat from 941 CE to 1297 CE. Interestingly Anahilapura’s linkage with Broach is evident when we are told that Kubera, a wealthy merchant of Anahilapura, visited Bhr̥gukaccha to engage in trade in the company of fifty-five merchants with five hundred ships. Though located inland, Anahilapura was midway between the routes leading towards Rajasthan, on the one hand, and to the coastal sites of Gujarat on the other. Thus, this presentation will demonstrate the expansive networks and interlocking circuits of commerce of these places and their presence in the narrative of Gujarat’s participation in the Indian Ocean network.
About the speaker: Suchandra Ghosh is Professor and Chair in the department of History, University of Hyderabad. Her area of research is Politico-Cultural History of early North-West India, Indian Ocean Buddhist and Trade Networks, and the History of Everyday Life. She authored Exploring Connectivity: Southeastern Bengal and Beyond (2015) and From the Oxus to the Indus: A Political and Cultural Study ( 2017) and co-edited several volumes, the recent ones being Early Indian History and Beyond: Essays in honour of B.D.Chattopadhyaya (Primus Books, 2019), Exploring South Asian Urbanity, (Routledge, 2021) and The Economic History of India: Historiographical Issues and Perspectives-Essays in Honour of Professor Ranabir Chakravarti (Bloomsbury, 2023). She has been a visiting Professor in the Directeur des études, Associé programme at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme, Paris in 2018 and presently a visiting Professor at the department of History, École normale supérieure, Paris. She was the Sectional President, Ancient India for the 80th session of Indian History Congress in 2019. She is the member of the Advisory Board of Encyclopaedia Iranica.