Coastal India

History

A thriving trade existed between the Mediterranean world and Coastal Indian regions This led to significant intermingling between the people of Coastal India and the west asian world, particularly along the South West Indian Coastline along the Arabian Sea. Several west Asian communities have also settled and become part of the diversity of coastal south west India. These include the Parsis, Bohras and Baghdadi Jews in the westernmost region, The descendants of west Asian and mediterranean traders like The Bearys of Kanara region and the Mappilas along Malabar region, and the cochin jews and Syriac Nasranis along the southernmost region of South India. The Chola Empire established vast Tamil influence across South East Asian region across Indonesia, Java, Bali, Sumatra, Malaysia and Singapore. This brought South Indian Heritage to Cambodia, Indonesia and Bali where the Balinese Hindu traditions still thrives. This also lead to intermingling between coastal India and the south east Asia particularly in the South eastern Cholamandalam coastline along the Bay of Bengal.

Maritime tarde routes from coastal India were responsible for the spread of Indian influence, thus creating the Greater India region which had sanskritised-Indosphere, especially in Southeast Asia, resulting in dissemination of Buddhism and Hinduism and Indianization of Southeast Asia. Today, Indian diaspora is world's largest diaspora.

Culture

The linguistic diversity of Coastal India includes languages of the Dravidian language family including Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Malayalam, Beary and Kannada; languages belonging to the western zone of Indo Iranian language families including Gujarati, Marathi, Konkani, languages belonging to the central zone of the Indo-Iranian language families including Urdu and Persian and languages belonging to the eastern zone of Indo Iranian language family including Odia and Bengali. The region also has speakers of Semitic languages like Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. The common elements of the people of coastal India includes cuisine that consists of agrarian and coastal products and clothing that involves long flowing drapes with bare midriff for both men and women suited for humid and warm climate. Throughout coastal India women wear drapes called saree in various styles. In the western corner of the region the drapes are called as Dhoti for men. and Chaniya choli for women, further southwards the drapes are called as lungi or mundu for men. and veshti for women. Towards the southernmost tip of coastal south western India the social system of inheritance was once matrilineal. There are various festivals celebrated in the coastal states centered on deities.

Economy

Ancient trading routes

Coastal India and its Indian Ocean trade since ancient times has facilitated several trading routes:

• Indo-Mediterranean
  • India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor
  • Indo-Roman trade relations
  • Indus–Mesopotamia relations
• Maritime history of Odisha
• Silk Road

Modern shipping routes

• Westbound: India → Nine Degree Channel → Oman/Iran → Strait of Hormuz (Persian Gulf)
• Southwestbound: India → Socotra Gap → Red Sea/Suez Canal
• Eastbound: Middle East → Eight Degree Channel → Malacca Strait

Channels

Bay of Bengal channels

See Channels in Bay of Bengal.

Laccadive Sea channels

See Channels in Laccadive Sea.

Arabian Sea channels

The Arabian Sea contains several significant shipping channels and straits that connect the Indian Ocean with the Persian Gulf and Red Sea:

Museum

• National Maritime Heritage Complex