The southern shores turned India into a global trading hub while the North looked inward. Wondering why?
If you study the history of the Indian subcontinent, you'll see that in the ancient world, the South was buzzing with trade in a way the North never quite was. Ships loaded with spices, while precious stones, pearls, and textiles sailed out from the coasts of Tamilakam and Kerala, linking India with Rome, Arabia, and Southeast Asia. Gold (well, lots of gold) poured in, and subsequently, those bustling port cities turned into crossroads of culture and commerce. Meanwhile, the northern plains (although rich in agriculture and politics) played only a supporting role in this global exchange. Now, why did the South take the lead, while the North stayed on the sidelines? Well, a lot of things had a part to play. In this article, we’ll dive into some of them.
Southern India had (read has) the unfair advantage of its geography. Natural harbors like Muziris in Kerala, Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu, and Kaveripattinam along the Coromandel coast opened directly onto the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. From there, India was bound into vast networks reaching Rome, Arabia, East Africa, and Southeast Asia, among others. The North, by contrast, remained tied to inland routes that were longer and less predictable.
The monsoon was the South’s greatest ally. As Romila Thapar has noted, Indian sailors mastered its seasonal rhythm, timing voyages to carry them swiftly across the Indian Ocean. By sea, journeys were not only quicker but safer than the Silk Road, where caravans faced bandits and deserts. And while the North reeled from waves of invaders (Greeks, Persians, Huns, etc.), the southern coasts remained largely insulated, leaving rulers free to concentrate on commerce. Historian K.A. Nilakanta Sastri described this relative calm as the soil in which southern trade flourished.
Now, geography alone does not create prosperity. The thing is that southern rulers actively nurtured it. The Sangam poems of early Tamil literature are filled with images of thriving ports and busy markets. The Pattinappalai, for instance, praises Kaveripattinam as a city where ships “arrive with gold and depart with pepper.” The Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas, and Satavahanas invested in the infrastructure of commerce, including shipbuilding, harbor upkeep, and safe passage for visiting traders. The Periplus even mentions local officials called sagarapalas, sea-guides appointed to steer foreign ships through treacherous waters. In the North, meanwhile, the Mauryan and later Gupta empires built sophisticated systems of administration and agriculture but showed little appetite for maritime ambition. Kautilya’s Arthashastra offers a vision of governance rooted in the Gangetic plains, not the open sea.
If ships came, it was because the South had what the world craved. Pepper, cardamom, and cinnamon, grown on the slopes of the Western Ghats, were luxury items in Rome. Pliny the Elder famously grumbled that India drained Rome’s treasury, costing fifty million sesterces a year in spices and fine cloth. Archaeologists have unearthed hoards of Roman gold coins in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, mute evidence of this outflow.
Spices were only part of the story. Pearls from the Gulf of Mannar, beryl and sapphire from the interior, and fine cotton textiles all moved through southern ports. The Periplus lists ivory, pearls, silk cloth, and pepper among Muziris’s exports, while ships returned with wine, glassware, and gold. Unlike the North, whose trade with the West passed through Central Asian intermediaries, the South dealt directly. Roman ships anchored at Tamil ports, cutting out middlemen and deepening economic ties.
Turmeric, banana, sesame oil & the story of ancient culinary export.
— Indic History (@IndicHistory) December 22, 2020
Archeologists have found evidence of Indian spices & fruits in dental remains from ~1700 BCE in Israel, reinstating the belief that the ancient trade routes from India catered to far off places in the West. pic.twitter.com/jZSEe3GyNH
(Credit: Indic History)
With goods came ideas. Ports like Arikamedu and Muziris became cosmopolitan spaces where Greek, Arab, and Indian merchants rubbed shoulders. Sangam epics refer to yavanas (foreigners, most likely Greeks or Romans) moving easily through Tamil markets.
Religions also traveled along these routes. Indian traders carried Buddhism and Hinduism to Southeast Asia, where temples, scripts, and epics still carry traces of their origin. As historian R. Champakalakshmi has argued, southern trade “facilitated the diffusion of Indian cultural elements” far beyond the subcontinent. The North, too, spread ideas (most famously Buddhism along the Silk Road), but those journeys were longer and less direct. The South’s ships delivered both goods and gods straight across the seas.
The North was hardly isolated. Through the Silk Road, cities like Taxila and Pataliputra traded with Central Asia and China. The Kushan Empire, in particular, thrived on cross-continental commerce. Yet compared to the South’s maritime boom, northern trade was uneven and fragile.
Ports were fewer and less accessible, with Tamralipti in Bengal among the rare outlets. Goods had to travel long distances overland before reaching a ship. Constant invasions diverted resources to defense and destabilized routes. And unlike the South’s direct contact with Rome and Arabia, northern trade relied heavily on Central Asian middlemen, weakening India’s presence in the chain. As Burton Stein noted, the North’s focus on agrarian revenue and political consolidation often overshadowed maritime ambitions.
Romila Thapar has written that maritime trade “positioned India as a pivotal player in the ancient global economy.” That pivotal role belonged above all to the South.
