Insights into a Maritime World: Understanding Indian Ocean Trade through an Old Tamil Littoral Narrative

MARITAMIL seeks to unravel the economic and historical significance of Old Tamil literary sources composed in the ancient South Indian royal courts, which actively engaged in the Indo-Roman trade between the 1st and 4th centuries AD.

This epoch marked a pivotal juncture in the region’s history, as evidenced by the rich literary heritage of the Old Tamil Caṅkam corpus, since the economic opportunities inherent in trade relations led to the emergence of ‘early kingdoms’ and triggered their economic rise.

The project aims at preparing a new critical edition of the text called Paṭṭiṉappālai from the surviving manuscripts (palm-leaf and paper) accompanied by an exhaustive philological and historical analysis.

This unique source provides a window into the life of Pukār, a port on the southern shores of India, where, according to the Tamil texts, Greek ships arrive laden with precious gold and depart carrying the coveted cargo of pepper.

The goal is to rethink our conception of early Tamil history and maritime trade with the countries participating in Indian Ocean trade by bringing together sources kept apart and utilised by separate disciplines such as history of literature, history, and archaeology.

A new annotated translation will introduce this text to the international research community engaged in Indo-Roman trade and highlight it as a crucial source text for analysing the Monsoon Asia region in antiquity.