000			01724nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c515791 _d515791
008			210208b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aMukherjee, Rila _924122
245			_aStudying the Asian ocean-sea
260			_aIndia Quarterly
300			_a76(3), Sep, 2020: p.425-443
520			_aThis article urges a rethinking of South Asian cosmography to counter our notion of seascapes lying outside notions of sovereignty, territoriality and technologies of control. While seas have emerged as central to economic and political security for most of the worlds’ states, this is seen as a comparatively new phenomenon because South Asia’s territoriality has always been seen as land-based. The emphasis on the modern has resulted in a neglect of South Asia’s rich tradition of maritime expressiveness and generates a ‘maritime blindness’ affecting policy formulation, despite works on seafaring which trace diverse maritime perceptions from Pali and Sanskrit literature, sculptures, coins, paintings and epigraphy. This article claims that waterscapes were not absent in Asian ideas of territoriality, but differentiating between awareness in literary expressions of political selfhood wherein rulers saw the sea as boundary or even space of overlordship, and actual instances of ordering and controlling maritime spaces is important. By contrast, China’s example as keeper of meticulous records pertaining to maritime matters shows attempts at actively controlling maritime spaces and provides new ways of reading South Asian perceptions of the sea. – Reproduced
650			_aChina, India, Oceans, Inner seas, Coastal seas _921729
773			_aIndia Quarterly
906			_aOCEANS
942			_cAR