The institution, Centre for Maritime studies, can be set up in the Indian Naval Academy (INA) at Ezhimala with several departments like history, oceanic study, technology and underwater archaeology, opined the historian, he said delivering the keynote address the third edition of the Annual 'Dilli' series INA seminar on 'Indian Maritime History Expeditions, Operations & Players', at the Indian naval Academy (INA), Ezhimala, here on Friday.
"To start with we have to prepare a tentative bibliography of maritime literature in different languages of India. Dictionaries of sea-related terms, listing words for parts of ships and commodities related to voyages have to be created," he said.
To construct a complete maritime history of India we require more details about the Indian colonisation of South East Asia, and the relation between Indian states and the West Asian communities of Jews, Syrian Christians, and Arab Muslims, he said.
The specific accounts of harbour construction and ship building through Indian history, and the detailed study of Puranic literature about Indian voyages, especially Buddhist literature, have to be collected and studied. Inscriptions, coins, and accounts of ships and shipwrecks have to be examined for filling such volumes, for which a full-fledged institute needs to be set up, he said.
