Three Seas, Twenty Names, Three Thousand Years

Cities, towns, countries, and land features have been renamed for centuries and are in our closest political atmosphere. Renaming of places has shaped world politics, history, and lifestyle of people and acted as markers with the rise and fall of empires. When the British left India, hundreds of Anglicised names and European spellings got renamed to its native or a new one. When governments collapsed in the Soviet Union, Petrograd became Leningrad and finally St. Petersburg. On the departure of the Dutch from the New World, and the arrival of the English, New Amsterdam became New York. With the end of Belgian colonialism, Zaïre turned into the Democratic Republic of Congo, and almost all the Belgian names turned Bantu. And there are countless such examples that have shaped world history. 

But what about water bodies? The major oceans, seas, bays, gulfs? Rivers that shape world geography, lakes, ponds, and even smaller tributaries and distributaries. Maritime warfare has seen umpteen number of name changes that took place around us and also contributed equally in giving world history a direction. And one of the key water body systems was the ones around the Indian subcontinent - Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Bay of Bengal. Connecting Arabia to India and to the various kingdoms and empires of Southeast Asia, these water bodies decided the fate of the world and are still the major game-changers. This post shall talk about the various names of these water bodies and how they systematically oriented world order. 

The Arabian Sea

The sea touching Mumbai, Karachi, and Muscat has worn more names than almost any other body of water — each one a timestamp of who controlled it.

The oldest names came from the Indian interior. The Rigveda (~1500 BCE) called it Paraavat Samudra — "the farther sea, where the sun sets" — a directional name from the perspective of the Punjab heartland. By the Puranic era it had become Ratnakara, "the mine of gems," honouring the pearls, corals, and trade wealth that flowed from its depths. Tamil Sangam poets called it simply Kudakadal — the Western Sea.

The Persians were the first to map it formally. In 515 BCE, Achaemenid emperor Darius I sent a Greek sailor named Scylax of Caryanda (in today's Türkiye) down the Indus River and westward along the Arabian coast all the way to Suez — a thirty-month voyage. For Darius, the sea was Darya-e-Hind, the Sea of Hind. Hind was Persian for Sindhu, the Indus River. This single etymological chain — Sindhu → Hind → Indos → Indus → India — is what eventually gave the ocean its modern name too.

The Greeks collapsed the entire northwestern Indian Ocean — Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf — into one name: the Erythræan Sea, after a mythological Persian king called Erythras. Alexander's admiral Nearchus sailed it in 326 BCE after the Indian campaign. The anonymous Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (~50 CE) became the definitive Greco-Roman trading guide to its ports. Romans formalised it as Mare Erythræum.

Medieval Arab geographers, despite their sailors dominating these waters for centuries, couldn't agree on a name. Some called it Bahr-e-Fars (Persian Sea), inheriting Sassanid terminology. Others used Bahr-al-Hind (Sea of India), the Green Sea, or the Sea of Oman. Arab commercial dominance peaked under the Abbasid Caliphate (8th–13th centuries), with dhows reaching as far as China — yet no single Arab name ever became universal.

The Portuguese settled it. When Vasco da Gama arrived at Calicut in 1498, he sailed a sea visibly run by Arab merchants at every port. Portuguese maps began calling it Mar Arabico. British geographical standardisation confirmed it in the 18th century, and the International Hydrographic Organization formalised the name in the 20th. "Arabian Sea" is ultimately a Portuguese-British cartographic decision — made not because Arabs discovered it, but because Arab traders were the most visible presence on it when Europeans arrived. A Vedic poet called it the sea of gems. A Persian emperor called it the sea of India. A Greek merchant called it the Red Sea. An Arab navigator couldn't decide. A Portuguese explorer named it after the people he kept meeting on its shores.

The Bay of Bengal

The sea that curves along India's eastern coast, touching Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and the shores of Myanmar and Sri Lanka, has always been understood differently — wilder, more monsoon-driven, and for much of history, the gateway to Southeast Asia.

The oldest Indian names were again directional. The Rigveda called it Purva Samudra — the Eastern Sea, where the sun rises — the mirror image of the Arabian Sea's western designation. The epics called it Mahodadhi, "the great vessel of water," the ocean Rama's armies gazed upon before crossing to Lanka. In Odisha and Andhra it was Kalinga Sagar, named after the powerful kingdom that dominated its western coast. Tamil Sangam poets called it Vangakadal or Vada Kadal — the Bengal Sea, or the Northern Sea.

The Sanskrit classical tradition also used Vangasagara — Sea of Vanga, the ancient kingdom of Bengal — reflecting how the bay's identity shifted depending on which coast you stood on. From the Tamil south it was the northern sea. From Bengal, it was the great eastern ocean.

Greeks and Romans named it with characteristic Ganges-centrism. Ptolemy (~150 CE) called it Sinus Gangeticus — the Gulf of the Ganges — because the Ganges was the most famous river of India and this was simply that river's gulf. Roman maps continued using the name for centuries after it had faded from use on the subcontinent itself.

The bay's most significant historical moment came under the Chola Empire. It was across this sea — their Vangakadal — that Rajendra Chola I launched his famous 1025 CE naval campaign, devastating the Srivijaya Empire in Sumatra. The Cholas understood this sea not as a boundary but as a highway.

European cartographers called it variously the Sea of Bengal or Gulf of Bengal, after the Bengal region defining its northwestern shore. The name "Bay of Bengal" consolidated in British colonial usage through the 18th century, driven by the importance of the Bengal Presidency as the centrepiece of British India. What that name obscures is that this was never one civilisation's sea — it was the Kalinga kingdom's trading coast, Rama's mythological horizon, the Chola navy's launching pad, the Buddhist missionary route to Southeast Asia, and a British administrative convenience, all layered over three thousand years.

The Indian Ocean

Of the three, the Indian Ocean has the most contested naming history — because its name has always been political.

The oldest Sanskrit name was Ratnakara — "the mine of gems" — used in the Puranas as a collective name for the great southern ocean. The epics used Mahodadhi for its expanse. The Vedic tradition generally conceived of it as the cosmic receptacle of all rivers rather than a navigable sea with fixed boundaries.

The Persians under Darius I called it Darya-e-Hind — the Sea of Hind — after their province Hinduš on the Indus. This is the name that, filtered through Greek as Oceanus Indicus, eventually became "Indian Ocean." Pliny the Elder (~77 CE) was apparently the first author to formally use Oceanus Indicus in his Natural History — one of the earliest documented uses of the "Indian" label on this ocean.

Ptolemy's maps (~150 CE) called it Mare Indicum and imagined it as a giant enclosed lake, with an unknown landmass connecting Africa and Asia to the south. This geographical misconception persisted on European maps for over a thousand years. Medieval Arab geographers called it Bahr al-Hind — the Sea of India — or the Sea of Zanj in its southern reaches near East Africa. Chinese navigators of the Tang and Song dynasties, and most famously Zheng He's fleet in the early 15th century, called it the Western Ocean — a reminder that geography is always relative to where you stand.

The Portuguese, arriving via the Cape of Good Hope in 1497–98 under Vasco da Gama, called it the Mar da India. The name "Indian Ocean" became standard through European cartographic convention during the 16th and 17th centuries and was formalised by the International Hydrographic Organization in the 20th century.

Arabian Sea — Historical Names
Period	Name	Meaning
~1500 BCE	Paraavat Samudra	Western sea, where the sun sets (Rigveda)
~1500 BCE	Sindhu Sagar	Sea of the Indus River (Sanskrit)
~400 BCE – 400 CE	Ratnakara	Mine of gems (Puranas)
~515 BCE	Daryaye Hind	Sea of Hind (Achaemenid Persia)
~300 BCE – 300 CE	Kudakadal	Western Sea (Tamil Sangam)
~5th c. BCE – 18th c. CE	Erythræan Sea	Sea of King Erythras (Ancient Greek)
~1st c. CE	Mare Erythræum	Erythraean Sea (Roman)
~6th – 17th c. CE	Bahr-e-Fars	Sea of Persia (Sassanid / Medieval Arab)
~7th – 14th c. CE	Bahr-al-Hind	Sea of India (Abbasid Caliphate)
~15th c. CE	Mar Arabico	Arabian Sea (Portuguese)
~18th c. CE – present	Arabian Sea	Named after Arab traders (British cartography)
Bay of Bengal — Historical Names
Period	Name	Meaning
~1500 BCE	Purva Samudra	Eastern Sea, where the sun rises (Rigveda)
~400 BCE – 400 CE	Mahodadhi	Great vessel of water (Sanskrit Epics)
~300 BCE onwards	Kalinga Sagar	Sea of Kalinga (Odisha tradition)
~300 BCE – 300 CE	Vangakadal	Sea of Vanga / Bengal (Tamil Sangam)
~300 BCE – 300 CE	Vada Kadal	Northern Sea (Tamil Sangam)
~300 BCE – 300 CE	Gangasagara	Sacred sea of the Ganga (Sanskrit)
~150 CE	Sinus Gangeticus	Gulf of the Ganges (Ptolemy)
~16th – 18th c. CE	Gulf of Bengal	Named after Bengal region (Portuguese / Dutch)
~18th c. CE – present	Bay of Bengal	Named after Bengal Presidency (British)
Indian Ocean — Historical Names
Period	Name	Meaning
~1500 BCE	Samudra	Assemblage of waters (Rigveda)
~1500 BCE – 400 CE	Ratnakara	Mine of gems (Puranas)
~515 BCE	Darya-e-Hind	Sea of Hind (Achaemenid Persia)
~5th c. BCE	Erythræan Sea	Entire NW Indian Ocean zone (Ancient Greek)
~77 CE	Oceanus Indicus	First formal use of Indian label (Pliny)
~150 CE	Mare Indicum	Indian Sea (Ptolemy)
~7th – 14th c. CE	Bahr al-Hind	Sea of India (Medieval Arab)
~7th – 14th c. CE	Sea of Zanj	Named after East African coast (Arabic)
~15th c. CE	Xi Yang	Western Ocean (Chinese — Zheng He era)
~15th c. CE	Mar da India	Sea of India (Portuguese)
~18th c. CE – present	Indian Ocean	Named after India, itself from Indus River (British)

Maukharis - the forgotten medieval guardians

A great number of empirical stretches occurred also through nomadic expansions globally. Be it the Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc., of the ancient world, or the medieval Khanates of the Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, and the mighty Mongols. One among these several was the Huns, spread across multiple regions in Asia and Europe. The lineage or the predominance of Huns emerged early from the Xiongnu group that stretched around modern-day Mongolia, Kazakhstan, parts of Russia, and China, for nearly four centuries (~300 BC to 100 AD). The Hunnic tribe branched out, continued, and spread throughout central and South Asia. And although the most popular name among the Huns is that of Attila, the European chapter of it, existing between 379 to 469 AD, spreading out from modern-day Hungary, the Huns had its one corridor shaking Indian grounds, so much so that it was a major trigger for the fall of the gigantic Gupta Empire (240 to 579 AD). These were known as the White Huns or the Hephthalites or archaically, Ebodalo. 

It's hard to point out one particular ethnic group for the Huns. They were nomadic pastoral tribes and made no claims over any establishment as their capital or had any expansionist sentiments, at least in the beginning of their invasions. A particular clan would work in monarchic hegemony, and once that clan weakens or is fractured, the whole tribe vanishes or is discontinued or succeeded by another. 

The Kidarites of the 5th century AD and Attila's Huns of the same era, though operating in two entirely different geographical locations, were both Huns — yet shared no connection other than a common origin in the Xiongnu confederation centuries earlier. And so, the Hunnic group that originated from today's Kabul valley (or Gandhara), raided on the various provinces such as Takka, Jalandhara, Sthanviswara, Srughna, Matipura, Mathura, Govisana, Ahichhatra and Kanyakubja and extending to Jejabhukti and Mahesvapura. These lands in modern day stretch from the undivided Punjab to Awadh and Malwa, and the two names from the Hunnic realm that played havoc in these regions were Toramana and Mihirakula. 

The two Indic-sounding names were actually Hunnic rulers originating from Gandhara and around. It's hard to decipher their exact place of origin, but they could be either from Gandhara, or the neighbouring provinces of Taksasila, Varana, Simhapura, Nagarahara, Lampa, Kapisa or Udyana. They coincide with northern Pakistan and the Hindu Kush valley of Afghanistan and it's reported that there still exists a good number of people living in these areas sharing lineage with this particular set of Huns. To simplify, these Hunnic tribes are known as White Huns or Hephthalites. 

It's easier to infer through a superficial glass of history that these Hunnic 'raids' were countered by Indic dynasties, particularly the Maukharis, triggering a precursor to the downfall of the majestic Gupta Empire. The Maukhari Dynasty, that existed between 510 to 606 AD, stretched from Ahichhatra (near today's Bareilly) to Kajangala (near Sahibganj, Jharkhand-Bihar border) in Magadha, the Ganga-Yamuna belt of today's Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, was a major buffer between the deconstructing Guptas and emerging Harsha, the two key names in medieval Indian history. Its capital was Kanyakubja (modern-day Kannauj) which continued to be the capital of the succeeding empires. 

But the conquests of the Hunnic father-son duo - Toramana and Mihirakula - actually proceeded with settlements on the soil of Malwa and Awadh, so much so that they even adapted the Indic religions. The Aulikara dynasty of modern-day Malwa got into the crosshairs of Mihirikula and his king Yashodharman, in 530 AD, actually crushed the Hunnic power, thus consolidating their claim to be lordship of northern India. In fact, this battle at Sondani (near Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh) was so important that there is a victory pillar marked at the ruins of the ancient city, and inscriptions describe the battle fought by the joint combination of Yadhodharman and the Gupta emperor Narasimhagupta. Even after such a powerful defeat, and although Mihirakula was pushed north to Kashmir, the Hunnic soldiers mingled with the Malwa populace and centuries later, 'Hun' started existing as a caste in central India between the 8th and 10th centuries. 

Even when the Maukharis defeated the Huns, the dynasty is still considered the end of the giant Gupta Empire. A three-century-old empire, that witnessed the existence of some epic names from Indian history - Aryabhatta the mathematician, Kalidasa the poet, Sushruta Samhita the founder of Ayurveda, and many great inventions and establishments, including the Iron Pillar in Delhi - all crumbled down with a trigger from a ruling clan segregated around just the territories of Kanyakubja. Towards the end of the 6th century AD, the Guptas were a crumbling empire as after the demise of Kumaragupta in 455 AD, every other ruler couldn't contain the increasing number of external threats, unclear heir, fragmented policies, and barely dragging the empire's name. Provinces under the empire assumed independence from the Gupta hegemony, and the last few emperors such as Purugupta, Kumaragupta II, Budhagupta, Narasimhagupta Baladitya, Kumaragupta III, and Vishnugupta, simply couldn't retain what the initial emperors had built. The Maukharis of Kannauj took advantage of this situation and after defeating the Huns at Sondani, skyrocketed their dynasty's name. 

The Maukharis are the forgotten guardians of the Indo-Gangetic plains, who prevented north India from a possible Hunnic havoc. The Hephthalites under Mihirakula had raided Balkh and destroyed over 1,000 Buddhist monasteries, and had it been his victory at Sondani, religious sites such as Varanasi, Saranatha, Rohitasva, Buddha Gaya, Nalanda and even Pataliputra were under threat. If one had to imagine, maybe the Hunnic raids under Mihirakula might have resulted in a uglier menace to the Gangetic plains and history would have been written differently. After all, the stories of Hunnic havocs stretched from the Chinese frontier to the gates of Rome, stretching almost 8,000 kms of the earth. And yet, the Maukhari stoppage didn't stand a chance in the pages of history, for the many reasons that it didn't push itself to a point of remembering. 

And it wasn't just this part; the aftermath of Hunnic closure by the Maukharis strengthened ties between them and the Sasanian Empire or Eranshahr, that at its peak stretched from Balochistan to central Anatolia, and between Libya to Turkmenistan bouncing off at the Gulf nations. In fact, the game of chess (technically, its precursor, the Chaturanga) was used as a diplomatic tactic between Sarvavarman the Maukhari king and Khosrow I, head of the Sasanian Empire, to establish a relation with the Persian king in the post-Hunnic world. 

With the complete fall of the Hephthalites in 560 AD, the remnants of soldiers, nobles, and common people started to merge with the Rajput clans, mostly in the Malwa and Rajputana regions. For almost a century, heavy assimilation into Indic clans, Sanskritisation of their names, and acceptance of local religion and traditions took place, so much so that the next lineage of dynasties had mere traces of Hephthalite cultures remaining, but were majorly Rajput dynasties. The Pratiharas, Paramaras, Chahamana or Chauhans, Gujjars, and a few more are somehow or the other way connected to the medieval Hunnic realm, although there exists no direct descendant of Huns in India anymore. 

The Maukharis were succeeded by the mighty Harsha empire, but its remnants can be found as cave inscriptions at Barabar Caves (Jehanabad district, Bihar), Gopika Caves (Gaya district, Bihar), and Vadathika Caves (Gaya district, Bihar). In Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district, Maukhari inscriptions were found at Haraha village dating back to the 7th century AD. Today, there may not be any significant monument or even a temple belonging to the realm of Maukharis, but their deeds are the reason why the Indian subcontinent wasn't fully galvanised by the cusp of Huns, like what they did in Europe and Central Asia.