Why isn’t The love and daring of seafaring that you see in European history and culture right from the homer’s epic of odyssey to Vasco De Gama to the British mastery of the ocean in creating a world empire isn’t anywhere nearly as visible as it is in Indian culture except for chola expeditions? They went so far as to even ban sea travel in medieval ages and seafaring fishing communities are often placed very low in the social order from Gujarat to Kerala. Like Sri Aurobindo said regarding the village republics on how irrespective of the march of empires in the country they were undisturbed and hibernating in their own villages for centuries without any curiousity. As I understand it too much obsession with the order and not embracing love of chaotic flow of oceans and it’s unknown vasts as it is visible in European naval history and literature is an inevitable evolutionary decline in spirit. I was a bit disappointed recently knowing that when European merchants reached in medieval times Japan the Japanese were very curious and quick to enquire about their map making and cartographic equipment while none such Indian records exist,there are many foreigner traveller records of them coming to India and writing the records of their observations of India while there’s no Indian who went to foreign lands and wrote such observations and records cos the foreign lands are inhabited by mlecchas and it makes you impure entering them. What explains such close mindedness, Is this what Sri Aurobindo meant by decline in thought power that happened🤔?
May 28, 2025
The India you are comparing with the modern European is the India of the dark ages. But even till the last few centuries, Indians also
