The 'Pattanams' of South Asia

Many cities around the world have suffixes, which in cartography is called 'toponymics'. For South Asian (and some Iranian) cities, you'll often find words like -nagar, -abad, -pur, -garh, -stan, -pura and so on. In Europe, you'll see -grad, -gorod, -borg, -burg, -polis, -chester, -ton, -ville and similar suffixes, which also appear in American cities. Similarly, African and Oceanian towns have their own suffixes. This post will explore a less commonly discussed suffix in India, which has roots much older than the others: the word -patnam/-pattana/-patnam. 

These suffixes, like the others, point to a settlement, or more precisely, a port settlement. So, you'll find most of these places near the harbour or along a river. Today, cities like Visakhapatnam, Machilipatnam, Nagapattinam, Srirangapatnam and so on. To keep things simple, we'll skip the Anglicised versions of these names and stick with the original spellings, even though they might sound interesting. For example, Masulipatam and Seringapatam mean exactly the same as their original forms. There are a few more cities we could add, even if they don't have the same suffix, but their names tell you why they should be here. Take Patna and the various Patan(s). Patna is on the River Ganga, while the different Patan(s) are along rivers like the Koyna in Satara, Maharashtra, the Kharun in Durg, Chhattisgarh, the Bagmati in Nepal and even the Arabian Sea in Gujarat.

The significance of towns ending in -pattinam (and similar suffixes) mainly came from the fact that these cities were harbours, inviting trade and commerce with foreign rulers. Therefore, a kingdom with a harbour town was more likely to welcome both commercial and naval attacks. In medieval South Asia, the region opened up to the Arab Caliphates in the west, the Sultanates and empires of Indonesia and Malaysia and even traded with the Sri Lankan empires like Aryachakravartis and Anuradhapura. Even the Swahili city-states and the Adal and Ajuran Sultanates of Somalia recognised the value of -pattinam towns, which helped the Cholas become a maritime power, giving them control over trade and commerce in the waters around India. 

Some names that really shaped Indian history, like Anahilavadapattana or Anhilpataka (now Patan in Gujarat), Prabhasapattana (now Somnath in Gujarat), Gopakapattana or Gopakapuri (Goa Vehla in Goa), Mahodyapuram or Mahodayapattanam (Kondungallur or Cranganore in Kerala), Cholakulavallipattinam (now Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu), Machilipatnam (in Andhra Pradesh), Kulottungapatnam or Ishakapatnam (now Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh) and so on. These coastal towns were also the capitals of important medieval kingdoms, which meant Indian harbours became important links between Asia and Europe. Along with these trading routes, there were battles and naval conflicts that changed everything, opened up new paths for the colonisers and reshaped religious ideas, which we can still see today. 

Let's not forget the Chola expedition to Nagapattinam in 1025. Rajendra Chola I raided the Srivijayan towns of Kedah, Lamuri, Lamkasuka and Palembang (now in Malaysia and Indonesia), which were the empire's strongholds. This raid helped break their dominance in southeast Asia. Interestingly, this was the only recorded Indian expedition to a foreign land via sea, which cemented the Cholas' status as the supreme masters of the seas. The port town of Gopakapattana (now Goa Velha in Goa) also showcased similar strength. It connected Simhala (Sri Lanka), Unguja (Zanzibar), Larissa (Kuwait), the Pandyas of today's Kerala, the Gaudas of Bengal, Sri Sthanaka (Thane) and the Gurjara clans scattered across Konkan. The port boasted a powerful fleet under Jayakeshi I, the mighty Kadamba ruler who moved its capital to Gopakapattana and bolstered its maritime capabilities. The town of Mahodayapuram, now Kodungallur (formerly Cranganore during the colonial period), had an even older name, Muziris, which linked trade routes with the Roman Empire. It is also thought to be where Apostle Thomas arrived in the first century AD and houses India's oldest mosque, the Cheraman Juma Masjid, built in 629 AD.  

But what did all this really mean for ordinary people? History often celebrates royalty, merchants and traders, who have shaped history through trade and war. What about the common people who weren't sailors or soldiers? The Pattanams welcomed foreigners, so people living in these harbour towns would be exposed to many different ethnicities—Arabs, Persians, Chinese, Africans, Burmese and Europeans—all walking around. And they weren't always merchants; they were also painters, writers, explorers and those who sought knowledge. Along with the fury of wars and violent attacks, this mix brought the exchange of language, culture, music, literature and art, which really shaped India's cultural history. Being in port towns also meant better records of the city's civic life compared to other inland villages, since trade depended heavily on documentation. It also made civilians more accessible to royal authorities, as they were mostly stationed in these towns for better administration and since most of them were capitals, this added to the convenience of the local people. 

Living by the harbours also meant facing more violence, both from people and nature, than in other areas. As Arabs and Europeans arrived and began their military campaigns, the lives of the people became even more difficult. The terrible Periyar floods of 1341 destroyed the city of Mahodayapatnam or Muziris, but the destruction also led to the creation of Vypin and other islands a little south, which is now the birthplace of modern-day Kochi. Settlements like Manikapatna and Khalkatapatna on the Odisha coast began to disappear as the Chilika Lake silted up. Because of this, by the late 18th century, the harbours moved to Balasore, Pipli and Dhamra, leaving the old medieval Oriya harbours behind. Kaveripoompattinam, the early capital of the Cholas, which is now Poompuhar (in the Mayiladuthurai district of Tamil Nadu), was washed away by tsunamis, erosion and flooding. These disasters caused many people to be displaced, which was a much harder job back then than it is today. So, along with the benefits of thriving trade and commerce, these natural disasters really show what life was like in the harbour towns of old India. 

When new towns popped up or people who had lost everything moved to different places, they naturally started blending the existing cultures there. By the Middle Ages, harbour towns had a big Muslim population that mixed Arabic and Malayalam, which became the heart of the Mappila community. When the Portuguese first arrived in the 1500s, for instance, the Creole language in Nagapattinam really took off, especially with the 'Portuguese Patois' thing happening. As ports like Kaveripoompattinam got smaller, Madraspatnam grew and lots of people from South India, speaking Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and even Urdu, started using the local 'Madras Bashai' slang within Tamil. The Periyar flood also pushed Jewish communities out, and they ended up forming a small but important Judeo-Malayalam community, which later moved to Israel in the 1900s.

Here's a list of some of the -pattinams/-pattanas that used to be around on the Indian subcontinent.  

Port / Settlement	Location	Period	Historical significance
Patan Anhilwad-Patan · Anhilpataka	Patan Dist., Gujarat	c. 745 CE – 1304	Capital of the Chaulukya (Solanki) dynasty; one of medieval India’s wealthiest cities. Home to the UNESCO-listed Rani ki Vav stepwell. Famous across the medieval Indian Ocean for its patola double-ikat silk.
Somnath Prabhasa-pattana · Prabhas Patan	Gir Somnath Dist., Gujarat	Ancient – present	Temple-port where three rivers meet the Arabian Sea. Sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1025–26 and repeatedly rebuilt. Arab merchants resident here from at least the tenth century.
Kharepatan Kharepattana	Sindhudurg Dist., Maharashtra	By 8th c. CE	Principal site of South Konkan Shilahara inscriptions. The 1008 CE Rattaraja copper plates give the full dynastic genealogy. A 1094 CE grant records customs exemptions at Thana, Sopara and Chaul. Later a Maratha–Angre fort, destroyed 1818.
Goa Velha Gopakapattana · Govapuri · Gove	Tiswadi Taluka, Goa	c. 750 CE – c. 15th c.	One of the great medieval western-coast ports; Kadamba capital from 1050. A copper plate of Jayakeshi I records trade with Sri Lanka, Zanzibar, Bengal and Gujarat. Had a resident Arab quarter and a naval fleet from 1053. Only laterite ruins at low tide survive today.
Vallipattana Ballipattana · possibly Basurepattana	Goa / South Konkan (location debated)	Late 8th c. CE	Fort recorded in the Kharepatan plates as built by Dhammayira, son of Shilahara founder Sanaphulla. Exact location contested in scholarship.
Kodungallur Mahodayapuram · Muchiri-pattinam · Muzuris · Cranganore	Thrissur Dist., Kerala	1st c. CE – 1341	The Muzuris of Roman writers and Muchiripattinam of Sangam poetry. Chera capital c. 800–1124. Trade documented with the Mediterranean, Arab world and China continuously across the period. Traditional site of St Thomas’s arrival and India’s oldest mosque. Devastated by the Periyar flood of 1341.
Uraiyur Senkanma-pattinam · Kozhi	Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu	By Sangam era; 1st–3rd c. CE peak	Sangam-era Chola capital predating Kaveripoompattinam. The Periplus tentatively identifies it as Argaru, source of the finest Indian cotton textiles for Roman export. Now absorbed into Tiruchirappalli.
Periyapattinam Parakirama-pattinam · Fattan (Ibn Battuta) · Dabadan (Chinese sources)	Ramanathapuram Dist., Tamil Nadu	13th – early 15th c.	Major medieval Coromandel port visited by Ibn Battuta in 1344. Excavations yield Chinese celadon, Yuan and Ming blue-and-white, and West Asian glazed ware in unusual abundance. Multiple Zheng He voyages (1408, 1412, 1421) made landings here.
Kayalpattinam Kayal · Cail (Marco Polo) · Old Kayal	Thoothukudi Dist., Tamil Nadu	9th–10th c. onward	The great Pandyan horse-import emporium. Marco Polo (1292–93) described ships from Hormuz, Aden and Kish unloading Arabian warhorses here. The Marakkayar merchant community, linked to the Hadhramaut, Maldives and Southeast Asia, has lived here for over a millennium.
Adirampattinam Named after local Maratha-era chief Adiraman	Thanjavur Dist., Tamil Nadu	17th–18th c.	Coastal trading town and Tamil Muslim cultural centre on the Palk Strait. Dhows from here ran the South India–Sri Lanka–Malaya circuit into the 20th century.
Nagapattinam Nagai · Cholakulavallipattinam · Negapatam	Nagapattinam Dist., Tamil Nadu	7th c. – 1781 (Dutch)	Principal Chola naval port — launch point for Rajendra I’s 1025 expedition against Srivijaya. Site of the Chudamani Vihara, a Buddhist monastery endowed by the Srivijayan kingdom. Dutch headquarters on the Coromandel 1660–1781; ceded to the British 1781.
Kaveripoompattinam Puhar · Pumpuhar · Kaveripattanam · Khaberis (Ptolemy)	Mayiladuthurai Dist., Tamil Nadu	By 3rd c. BCE; peak 1st–4th c. CE	The great Chola capital-port of the Sangam age, described in vivid detail in Pattinappalai and the Buddhist epic Manimekalai. Handled the Roman pepper-for-gold trade. Submerged by tsunami and coastal erosion from roughly the 4th–9th centuries; the 2004 tsunami briefly exposed seabed structures.
Devanampattinam Devanapatnam · Tegnapatnam · Fort St. David	Cuddalore Dist., Tamil Nadu	Dutch 1608; English from 1690	Dutch fort attempt 1608, abandoned under Portuguese pressure. Sold to the English EIC in 1690 and renamed Fort St. David. British southern India HQ after Madras fell to the French in 1746. Robert Clive was governor here in 1756.
Krishnapatnam —	Tirupati Dist., Andhra Pradesh	Medieval – present	A historically modest feeder port valued for its natural depth. Now one of India’s largest deepwater commercial harbours, handling iron ore, coal and container traffic.
Nizampatnam Petapoli · Petipoli (Dutch & English records)	Bapatla Dist., Andhra Pradesh	English factory 1611 – present	Medieval Coromandel port under the Golconda Sultanate. English EIC factory established here in 1611, the same year as Masulipatnam. Renamed Nizampatnam under the Asaf Jahi Nizams. The 1977 Andhra cyclone made landfall here.
Motupalli Desi-Uyyakondan-pattinam · Mousopalli (Ptolemy) · Mutfli (Marco Polo)	Prakasam Dist., Andhra Pradesh	By 2nd c. CE; peak 13th–14th c.	Chief port of the Kakatiya Empire. The 1244 CE Abhaya Sasana of Ganapatideva is one of India’s earliest explicit grants of mercantile safety, assuring cargo security after shipwreck and fixing minimal customs duties. Marco Polo called it the diamond kingdom of Mutfli. Now a small fishing village.
Machilipatnam Maisolia · Masalia (Periplus) · Masulipatam · Bandar	Krishna Dist., Andhra Pradesh	By 1st c. CE; Dutch 1605, English 1611	One of the most important ports in Indian maritime history, noted by Ptolemy and the Periplus as a major muslin exporter. Principal port of the Golconda Sultanate. Dutch factory 1605, English 1611, French 1721. The 1864 storm-wave killed an estimated thirty thousand people.
Visakhapatnam Kulottungapatnam · Ishakapatnam · Vizagapatam	Visakhapatnam Dist., Andhra Pradesh	1068 CE inscription; English factory 1682	Renamed by Chola king Kulottunga I; later Ishakapatnam after a Sufi saint. Site of the 1804 Battle of Vizagapatam during the Napoleonic Wars. Now headquarters of India’s Eastern Naval Command.
Bheemunipatnam Bhimili · Bhima-patnam · Bimlipatam (Dutch)	Visakhapatnam Dist., Andhra Pradesh	Dutch factory 1628 – 1825	A fishing settlement until the Dutch VOC established a factory in 1628 under a Qutb Shahi farman. One of the principal Dutch settlements on the Coromandel for nearly two centuries. Two Dutch cemeteries survive; oldest grave 1661. Constituted a municipality in 1861.
Kalingapatnam Kalinga-pattana · Calingapatam	Srikakulam Dist., Andhra Pradesh	Ancient – present	Historic Kalinga port at the Vamsadhara mouth, regarded as a sailing-point for Kalinga voyages to Southeast Asia commemorated in Odisha’s Bali Yatra festival each Kartik Purnima. A surviving Sufi dargah marks its later importance. Much eroded today.
Manikapatna Chelitalo (Hiuen Tsang) · Manikpatna	Puri Dist., Odisha (Chilika Lake)	Early historic – 18th c.	Long-lived port at the north-east end of Chilika Lake; identified with the Chelitalo described by 7th-century pilgrim Hiuen Tsang. Excavations yield Roman amphora and rouletted ware at early levels, Chinese celadon through the medieval period, and an Indo-Arabian stone anchor published in Scientific Reports.
Khalkatapatna Khalkattapatna	Puri Dist., Odisha (Kushabhadra mouth)	12th–14th c. principal phase	Medieval Odishan port at the Kushabhadra river mouth near Puri. Excavations confirm Chinese celadon, Islamic glazed ware and Indian stoneware from the 12th–14th centuries. Classified as a dronimukha (river-mouth port) rather than a true pattana in Odishan sources.
Patna Pataliputra · Pataligrama · Kusumapura · Azimabad	Capital, Bihar	c. 490 BCE – present	The single most historically significant pattana-class settlement in India. Founded by Ajatashatru of Magadha c. 490 BCE; the Mauryan city under Ashoka may have been the world’s largest. Described by Megasthenes: wooden palisades, sixty-four gates, 570 towers. Renamed Azimabad in 1704. Major centre of the saltpetre, opium and textile trade for Dutch, French and English East India Companies.

1947 : Karenni States politics

British India was administered through a dual system of provinces and Princely States, spanning from Balochistan to the southernmost tip of the Madras Presidency, and from Bengal to Bombay. On historical political maps, British provinces are typically marked in shades of red, while the native states appear in yellow or chrome. However, during the period between 1824 and 1937—when Burma was annexed to mainland India—a small native territory existed that juggled various administrative possibilities, including the potential of remaining a separate sovereign nation. This was known as the Karenni States (often marked simply as "Karen Tribes" on maps and known today as Kayah State). While members of the Indian National Congress rarely involved themselves in Burmese politics, the pivotal year of 1947 inextricably connected Burma, India, and the Karenni States.

In August 1947, British India was partitioned into the independent Unions of India and Pakistan. Amidst the ongoing upheaval of partition, its former province, Burma, adopted its own constitution just a month later, in September 1947. At that time, Burma was organized into the following administrative units:

1. Sagaing
2. Shan States
3. Wa States
4. Magwe
5. Arakan
6. Mandalay
7. Pegu
8. Irrawaddy
9. Tenasserim

The Karenni (or Karen) tribes were historically administered under the Shan States, serving as a complex administrative unit that vacillated between British protection and sovereign independence. Prior to the 19th century, these tribes were loosely governed under Burmese suzerainty as an autonomous territory. While the annexation of Lower Burma between 1824 and 1852 left the Karenni largely unaffected, Burmese supremacy began to wane. By 1852, the region faced increasing British interference, rendering Karenni independence precarious. Caught between two rival powers, the Karenni leaders sought protectorate status from the British; however, the British—having already exhausted significant resources on Lower Burma—were reluctant to establish a new protectorate in the heart of the Indochinese peninsula. Consequently, between 1852 and 1875, the Karenni remained in a state of geopolitical ambiguity, caught between British influence and Burmese expansion.

In 1875, within the newly founded capital of Mandalay, the British administrator Sir Thomas Douglas Forsyth signed a treaty with King Mindon of the Konbaung Dynasty. This agreement formally recognised the Karenni States as independent from both Burma and Britain. This sovereign status created persistent friction between the Konbaungs and the British. It was not until 1892—after both Upper and Lower Burma had been incorporated into British India—that the British reclassified the Karenni States as "feudatory states," a status distinct from the Indian Princely States. A British agent was stationed in Loikaw, and the states of Bawlake, Kantarawaddy, and Kyebogyi agreed to accept a British stipend.

In the early 20th century, administration shifted again as the Karenni States were placed under the Federated Shan States. While legal documents had previously been drafted through the Legislative Council of India due to the region's proximity to Calcutta, the relocation of the capital to Delhi caused a shift in administrative priority. During the early 1900s, the Delhi government was increasingly preoccupied with the Indian independence movement, which largely excluded Burmese politics. Paradoxically, while Burma had been administered as part of British India for strategic reasons, it had historically functioned as a separate entity.

The eventual separation of Burma from India in 1937 drew criticism from Indian leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru. At the 1936 Faizpur session of the Indian National Congress, Nehru denounced the move as a "divide and rule" tactic intended to weaken the independence movements in both regions. Despite the separation, the status of the Karenni States remained unchanged until the chaos of World War II. While the Japanese occupied Burma and Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army marched along the Karenni periphery in 1942, the region itself remained largely sidelined during the conflict.

Following the war, as British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Aung San—the architect of Burmese independence—began campaigning for the integration of the Karenni into a unified Burma. Much like the integration of Princely States occurring simultaneously in India and Pakistan, the Karenni States were eventually absorbed. Following Burma's independence in 1948, these territories became a constituent unit of the new Union of Burma.

The Irish mutiny at Jalandhar, 1920

The Connaught Rangers were an Irish Catholic regiment of the British Army, formed in 1881 by amalgamating the 88th and 94th Regiments of Foot. Its home depot was at Renmore Barracks in Galway and it recruited mainly in the province of Connacht. These were men from Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Clare and Westmeath — the western and midland counties that became the Irish Free State. The regiment's nickname was "The Devil's Own", and it has the most oddest of Indian connections.

The Jalandhar Cantonment (or Jullunder Cantonment) is one of the oldest cantonments in India, established in 1848 after the first Anglo-Sikh War. In 1920 the cantonment was the scene of mutiny by Irish soldiers who were protesting against martial law in Ireland by refusing to obey orders. They took down the Union Flag and replaced it with the flag of the Irish Republic proclaimed in Dublin. This is the only entry in the cantonment's own official history that connects Jalandhar (and thus, India) to Ireland. The cantonment sits on the Grand Trunk Road, 89 kilometres from Amritsar and 371 kilometres from Delhi. Jullundur — as Jalandhar was then spelled — was therefore less than 90 kilometres from the site of the Amritsar massacre of April 1919. The soldiers who mutinied were stationed in the immediate shadow of that event, in a Punjab still seething with anger.

The morning of Sunday 28 June 1920; Wellington Barracks, Jullundur. At eight in the morning, Joseph Hawes, Patrick Gogarty, Christopher Sweeney and Stephen Lally, all members of C Company, approached an officer they felt they could trust, Lance Corporal John Flannery, and told him that they wished to ground arms and cease fighting for the British Army due to the oppression of their friends in Ireland. Hawes was from Kilrush, County Clare. He had been home on leave in October 1919 and had personally witnessed British soldiers with bayonets drawn preventing a hurling match from taking place. Letters from home describing Black and Tan violence had been arriving at the barracks, which A hastily recruited British paramilitary force that became synonymous with colonial terror in Ireland during the War of Independence. 

By the following morning over three hundred soldiers had joined the protest. The mutineers doubled the guard, distributed the task of making regular patrols, placed a permanent guard to monitor the senior officers, put a guard on alcohol, and commissioned a hundred green, white and orange rosettes from the local bazaar. They replaced the Union Jack with an Irish tricolour, declared their barracks Liberty Hall — the name of the Dublin building where the 1916 Rising had been planned — and sang rebel songs. The mutineers captured the cantonment armoury, took their English officers hostage and declared the Jalandhar cantonment the seat of the "Free Irish Government in exile." A clamp of secrecy descended on Jalandhar such that no details about what was happening inside the cantonment could leak out. For the next fifty years the world would remain largely oblivious of those events. All the Indian soldiers were moved away from Jalandhar, a tight censorship descended on the town, and it was officially stated that a major secret war exercise was under way in the cantonment. The British mobilised two battalions — the South Wales Borderers and the Seaforth Highlanders — who arrived with artillery and machine guns.

James Joseph Daly

On 30 June, Frank Geraghty of Castleblayney, County Monaghan, and Patrick Kelly were detailed to travel to Solon (Solan, in Himachal Pradesh of today) in the Simla Hills to communicate the fact that the troops in Jullundur had mutinied and to give instructions that if they mutinied, it would be on the lines of passive resistance with no violence. Geraghty appealed to James Joseph Daly as the most competent man and the one he knew personally wished to carry out a mutiny. Daly was a 20-year-old private from Ballymoe, County Galway. He had joined the Connaught Rangers in April 1919 — while the War of Independence was already underway — and been posted to India. His brother William had been one of the original mutineers at Jullundur. When Geraghty and Kelly were arrested on arrival at Solon, Daly heard enough of their shouted messages through the guardroom bars to understand what had happened.

Dagshai Prison, Solan

That night Daly rallied forty men. The Catholic chaplain at Solon, Father Benjamin Baker, persuaded the mutineers to deposit their weapons in the magazine for safekeeping. Then Daly changed his mind. A party of men led by Daly made an attempt to recover their arms and in the engagement two of them, Patrick Smythe and Peter Sears, were killed. Peter Sears had not even been involved in the attack on the magazine — he was returning to his billet when hit by a stray bullet. Eighty-eight mutineers were court-martialled: seventy-seven were sentenced to imprisonment and ten were acquitted. James Daly was shot by a firing squad at Dagshai Prison (today, the Dagshai Jail Museum, in Solan) on 2 November 1920. He was the last member of the British Armed Forces to be executed for mutiny. Eighteen others had also been sentenced to death. All eighteen had their sentences commuted. Only Daly was shot — specifically, as the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford stated, because the British could not afford to show leniency toward a mutineer in the Punjab while trying to maintain discipline over Indian troops still inflamed by Amritsar. Three memorabilia are associated with James Daly: the Connaught Rangers medal, a cross, and a frayed prayer book containing pages with Daly's fingerprints smeared in blood, indicating he was clutching the book when he was shot dead.

The guardroom at the
Jullunder Barracks
(Wellington Barracks)

The guardroom today, where the mutiny of the Irishmen in the British army is still remembered in India, stands at the site. The cantonment remains an active Indian Army establishment. The mutiny is noted in the cantonment's own official history, making Jalandhar one of the few places in India where an Irish event is formally acknowledged in local institutional memory. The Fateh newspaper of Delhi praised the Jullundur mutineers' actions as an adoption of Mahatma Gandhi's principles of civil disobedience and an illustration of how patriotic people can preserve their honour, defy the orders of the Government, and defeat its unjust aims. 

The bodies of Daly, Smythe and Sears remained in India for fifty years. In 1923, following Irish independence, the imprisoned mutineers were released and returned to Ireland. In 1936, the Free State's Fianna Fáil government awarded pensions to those whose British Army pensions were forfeited by conviction. In 1970, the bodies of Daly, Sears and Smythe were repatriated from India to Ireland for reburial. Daly was reinterred in Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath. A memorial to the mutineers stands in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

The former names of Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean

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)