Studying the Asian Ocean-Sea

dc.contributor.author Mukherjee, Rila
dc.date.accessioned 2022-03-27T01:54:31Z
dc.date.available 2022-03-27T01:54:31Z
dc.date.issued 2020-09-01
dc.description.abstract This article urges a rethinking of South Asian cosmography to counter our notion of seascapes lying outside notions of sovereignty, territoriality and technologies of control. While seas have emerged as central to economic and political security for most of the worlds’ states, this is seen as a comparatively new phenomenon because South Asia’s territoriality has always been seen as land-based. The emphasis on the modern has resulted in a neglect of South Asia’s rich tradition of maritime expressiveness and generates a ‘maritime blindness’ affecting policy formulation, despite works on seafaring which trace diverse maritime perceptions from Pali and Sanskrit literature, sculptures, coins, paintings and epigraphy. This article claims that waterscapes were not absent in Asian ideas of territoriality, but differentiating between awareness in literary expressions of political selfhood wherein rulers saw the sea as boundary or even space of overlordship, and actual instances of ordering and controlling maritime spaces is important. By contrast, China’s example as keeper of meticulous records pertaining to maritime matters shows attempts at actively controlling maritime spaces and provides new ways of reading South Asian perceptions of the sea.
dc.identifier.citation India Quarterly. v.76(3)
dc.identifier.issn 09749284
dc.identifier.uri 10.1177/0974928420936137
dc.identifier.uri http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0974928420936137
dc.identifier.uri https://dspace.uohyd.ac.in/handle/1/4299
dc.subject China
dc.subject coastal seas
dc.subject India
dc.subject inner seas
dc.subject oceans
dc.title Studying the Asian Ocean-Sea
dc.type Journal. Article
dspace.entity.type
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