Full Description
This book examines knowledge traditions that held together the fluid and overlapping maritime worlds of the Indian Ocean in the premodern period, as evident in the material and archaeological record. It breaks new ground by shifting the focus from studying cross-pollination of ideas from textual sources to identifying this exchange of ideas in archaeological and historical documentation.
The themes covered in the book include conceptualization of the seas and maritime landscapes in Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese narratives; materiality of knowledge production as indicated in the archaeological record of communities where writing on stone first appears; and anchoring the coasts, not only through an understanding of littoral shrines and ritual landscapes, but also by an analysis of religious imagery on coins, more so at the time of the introduction of new religions such as Islam in the Indian Ocean around the eighth century.
This volume will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, museum and heritage studies, Indian Ocean studies, maritime studies, South and Southeast Asian studies, religious studies and cultural studies.
Contents
1. Introduction 1a: Conceptualising the Seas: Introduction 2. Seven Seas and an Ocean of Wisdom: An Indian Episteme for the Indian Ocean 3. Gendered Spatialisation of the Ocean in the Kathāsaritsāgara 4. Conceptualising the Far West: Early Chinese Notions of Da Qin and the Indian Ocean Trade 5. Al-Muqaddasī's tenth-century maritime landscapes of the Arabian Red Sea 5a: The Materiality of Knowledge Production: Introduction 6. Making Megaliths and Constituting Collectives: Politics, Places, and Historicity in Prehistoric South India 7. Bullion, Baubles and Bowls: Reconstructing networks of exchange in the Indian Ocean 8. Material cultures of writing in the Indian Ocean world: a palm-leaf letter at the Mamluk court 8a: Anchoring the Coasts: Introduction 9. Practices of Faith: The Coastal Shrines of Ancient South Arabia 10. Entangled Traditions: The Royal Barges of Angkor 11. Musical Nomenclature for the Sanskrit term kangsa in Southeast Asia 12. Connected Words: Coins and Maritime Worlds of the Indian Ocean
