Gujarat and Long-Distance Trade in the Indian Ocean Region before the Sixteenth Century

Northwestern India, and particularly Gujarat, played a crucial role in the history of the ancient world by building connections with various Indian Ocean regions. These included the Persian Gulf, southern Arabia, the Red Sea, and the Horn of Africa on one side, and southern India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia on the other. Gujarat benefited from its agricultural potential and acted as a hub for various areas. This explains both its own success and the constant efforts by regional powers to control it. This chapter attempts to demonstrate the ways in which Gujarat proved able to assert its power and gradually become a major actor in exchanges in and around the Indian Ocean: exchanges that have connections to religious networks and places.

Ancient history · Economics · Economy · French horn · Geography · Indian ocean · Persian · Sociology · South asia · Southeast asia · Sri lanka · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Geology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Oceanography