Three civilizational design principles in the VedA. Civilizational continuity in a changing world. A Perspective on Response of Hindu AchAryAs to Changing Patterns of RtA. The non-response to 15th century European incursions in the South of India. Continuing Non-Response to the 21st Century Globalism.

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The non-response to 15^th century European incursions in the South

By Jayant Kalawar, August 25, 2023

Besides the invasions from the north west by carriers of the Islamic flag, Europeans began making incursions in the south of India beginning late 15^th century. How did Hindu AchAryAs respond to these incursions?

Here is a summary description of selected European incursions, beginning with the Portuguese entry into KeralA and subsequently Goa, Daman and Diu, beginning May 1498, while the Vijayanagara Empire (1336 – 1646) was at its peak. These examples show how newer forms of social organization and technologies enabled non-Hindu cultures to gain control over BhArat over long periods of time, implying that with initiative and curiosity Hindus could have learned these new ways and thus maintained and extended their domain into the Central and Western Asia and Europe 800 years ago.

1. The invention of double entry book keeping by Money Lenders / Bankers in Europe in general and Italy in particular beginning in the 13^th century enabled merchants to lend risky long term project funds^[i] (as opposed to specific asset based letters of credit e.g. Hundis) to Kings and Archbishops to finance trade related voyages combined with the cultural project of missionizing Christianity. This funding process helped Spain launch Columbus to the Americas (1492 – the quest was for the Indies but landed in the Americas) and Vasco Da Gama to India (1498). Design and construction of long distance sailing ships with substantial platforms to carry cannons was commissioned through such funds. The financing of these well-armed long distance sailing ships launched Europe’s global imperial project. When Vasco Da Gama arrived in Kozhikode (aka Calicut) he was given permission by theSamoothiri to set up a Portuguese trading post, along with missionaries. Vasco Da Gama headed back to Lisbon. The Portuguese traders were a competition with the Arab traders^[ii] who had set up shop in Kozhikode since the 12^th century. The Arab traders had their own militia for protection of their assets and also served as the Samoothiri’s navy for protection of the port as well as protection against pirates of the trading ships plying to and from Yemen as well as Egypt. The Arab traders persuaded the Samoothiri to expel the Portuguese. The Portuguese sent a ship with the message of an impending siege by the militia of the Arab traders at the behest of the Samoothiri. The trading post was able to withstand the siege for about 3 months, when 3 Portuguese armed (with cannons) ships arrived. It is said that on just the sight of the armed ships, the soldiers who had laid siege ran away (this may be an exaggeration, but the net result is not in contention). That was in 1503.
2. The Portuguese thereafter focused on defeating the Arab naval forces that were controlling the Arabian Sea. A pivotal naval war in 1509 ending with victory of the Portuguese armed ships over the joint forces of India based Sultans, the Ottomans and Egypt^[iii]. What was the Navy of the Empire of Vijayanagara doing? It seemed to be mostly based out of Honavar and focused on raiding Arab ships plying from Yemen and Aden to the sub-continent with horses bred for cavalry of the Mughals and Sultans who were preparing to attack and occupy Deccan. These naval raids secured a channel for supply of cavalry horses for the Vijayanagara Empire. The Vijayanagara naval commander, Timoji, at Honavar was also reputed to have provided intelligence to the Portuguese armada, enabling its victory in the war against the combined navies of the Sultans of Gujarat, the Ottomans and Egypt in 1509. Subsequently, Timoji is also said to have advised and enabled capture of Goa by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510. For his services, Timoji was briefly made the interim governor of Goa.

       So it may be that it was in 1509 when BhArat began coming under European hegemony, much before European Renaissance which began in late 16^th century. Rest was just a matter of time^[iv].

Did Hindu AchAryAs guide Hindu kings to establish trading posts in Yemen, Aden, east coast of Africa in the 800 years (since 9^th century, during the RashtrakuTA’s there are references to Arab merchants camping on the west coast) prior to Vasco Da Gama’s landing and later (post Vasco Da Gama) in Europe? What efforts were made to secure and learn techniques of double entry book keeping, funding risky long term projects and building out of the new weapons and naval technologies that were coming out of Europe, post Vasco Da GAmA’s landing in Kozhikode?^[v]

3. Extending double entry book keeping to accounting equation gave rise to concept of risky equity by the second half of 16^th century Europe. That led to formation of the Joint Stock Company as a social organization. East India Company was one of the joint stock companies (1590), with large number of small investors^[vi]. The company was chartered, under the umbrella of the United Kingdom of England and Wales, specifically for investing in a high risk project of setting up trade route to India. The joint stock company social organization and the social contracts with individual investors enabling higher risk ventures continues to be the core social contract across the globe today.

The management of the joint stock company was responsible of making returns for the investors in ways that are legal. In 1757 at battle of Plassey, Jagat Seth financed the war for the East India Company, including bribing Mir Jafar so Robert Clive can win. Did Jagat Seth know about the concept of joint stock company? In 1750s (more than 150 years after its founding) East India Company was in its death throes. Jagat Seth could have taken over the company and made Clive his employee. Was that explored? If not, what kept Hindu money lenders / bankers from learning and exploring about this form of social organization?

In general, people from all over the world came to both the western and eastern shores of India. China sent trading ships to the east coast ports, for example, for millennia. Did Hindus set up trading posts and dominion relationships with any of these countries they sold to? It would be interesting to research to ^[vii]see whether the exports had to be paid for with gold and silver, since there appears to be little reference to what India was importing. If indeed that is so, then it would make sense that so much gold was available in Deva SthAnAs across India. One could even speculate that the importers of Indian products having been under pressure of producing more gold to buy Indian imports would resort to raiding Indian temples for gold as a way for them to then being able to buy Indian products once again.

All of these ways of social and economic behavior (including especially the non-responses) that I have described above makes sense from within the Hindu culture, which teaches us to act as Karma yogins – produce and consume minimally, and celebrate the Divya ShAktis opulently in their Deva SthAnAs. This may come across as a harmonious stable perspective. However, it leaves the Hindu sanghaTanA vulnerable to attack from non-Hindu sanghaTanAs and to dynamic changes in RtA. To non-Hindu materialist outsiders (the MlechhAs) such practices may come across as infantile, of a people needing to be civilized.

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[i] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/234631058.pdf The origin of double entry bookkeeping is generally associated with Luca Pacioli. As a matter of fact, the history of accounting cannot be complete without highlighting the wonderful work of Luca Pacioli. His book “Suma de Arithmetia, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita” which was published in 1491 had two chapters – de Computis et Scripturis – describing double entry bookkeeping. His idea reflected the business activities of the Venice at as that time, especially the way they recorded financial transactions. This is to say that even before Pacioli published his book, the Merchants of Venice actually maintained accounting records which of course, they did in a particular way. So in his book, Pacioli simply described this peculiar method used by the early merchants to keep their records. This method was referred to as “the Method of Venice” or “the Italian Method”. This is to say that Luca Pacioli did not invent the double entry system of accounting. He only described the method of accounting practiced at that time.

[ii] “VAsco Da GAmA, for example, might never even have reached India had he not been guided there from the Adrican coast by an experience Arab pilot. And when, after an epic voyage of more than 12,000 miles, he and his men finally did arrive in the subcontinent, they were astonished to be met in the harbour of Calicut by two North African Muslims, both of whom could understand Portuguese” Pp 16-17, Casale, Giancarlo, The Ottoman Age of Exploration, Oxford University Press, 2020.

[iii] The Indian and Arab vessels carried gunpowder weapons, but even the largest dhows, built shell‑first with flexible hulls, were too weakly constructed to mount heavy guns. The Portuguese seized the weather gauge at the start of the engagement, testimony to their ships’ sailing qualities; this enabled them to engage or disengage at will. The Portuguese squadrons apparently fought in line ahead using broadside fire to systematically devastate the more lightly constructed, heavily manned Arab and Indian craft.87 The victory was clearly decisive. Further resistance to the Portuguese at sea was either sporadic or dependent on external support.

The next serious challenge to the Portuguese came in 1508 in the form of an expeditionary force mounted from the Red Sea under Mamluk direction with Ragusan and Venetian technical assistance and based on a hard core of Mediterranean war galleys. Reinforced with a large number of local vessels provided by the Sultan of Gudjerat, the force, under Hussein Pasha, caught a Portuguese squadron at anchor in the River Chaul and attacked with overwhelming numerical superiority. The Portuguese held out for three days before being overwhelmed, eloquent testimony to the defensive power of their vessels and the effectiveness of their ordnance. Of three naos and five caravels engaged, only two caravels got away a circumstance which suggests that the critical determinant of escape was handiness under sail and that the Portuguese could defend the low-lying caravels as well as the tall naos. Whether because of a lack of direction or heavy losses and the need for repairs, Hussein’s squadron retired to Diu where it was caught in port and annihilated the following year by a Portuguese squadron under Almeida. https://www.angelfire.com/ga4/guilmartin.com/Revolution.html

[iv] The core reason for Portuguese naval success, against the Arab-Turkish navy in the Arabian Sea, was superior naval technology emerging out of Europe: Carracks and Caravelles, long sailing ships designed to carry powerful (for that time) heavy cannons. Such development was made possible by funding for risky long term projects becoming available, enabled by double entry book keeping. The Vijayanagara as well as the Arab-Turkish navies used dhonis (powered by oars, rather than long sails) to carry armed infantry, ram the opponents ship, board them and take them over. That dhoni based naval strategy did not stand a chance against the sails and cannon combination, which bombed opposing ships from a distance. Source: Ibid

[v] The Ottoman’s, after the defeat in 1509 in the Arabian Sea, hired Venetian ship builders to build out its navy with the latest available technologies. There is evidence that such technology was available to Hindu kings. For example with Portuguese armada that arrived in 1503, to protect their trading post in Kozhikode, there are references showing that there were agents of weapons sellers from Venice on board that armada. After all, the armada was manned by privateers, mercenaries, in the pay of the King of Portugal dependent on loans funded by merchants. Some cannons were sold to the local Hindu kings, and with training, they were used against the Portuguese armada. That seems to indicate that Hindu kings could potentially have developed allies in Europe for selling their products directly to merchants in Europe, rather than through the trading posts that European kings were forced to send to India when the Ottomans cut off trading routes to India. Was that done? If not, what prevented Hindu kings from doing so?

[vi] Dalrymple, William, The Anarchy, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2019, Pp 7-8 “the EIC was from the very first conceived as a joint stock corporation, open to all investors”. And “The idea of a joint stock company was one of Tudor England’s most brilliant and revolutionary inventions”.

[vii] There are a few exceptions of kings sending trade and dominion missions from the east coast of India going to south east Asia as well as east Asia. Kalinga was one of them – and that came to an end with the invasion by Emperor AshokA about 2300 years ago. The kings of Tamil Nadu also ventured forth in first millennia CE. What caused them to lose influence is a question that needs to be researched.