Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the first European explorer to reach India was Vasco da Gama of Portugal, who arrived in what is today Calcutta in 1498, giving the Portuguese control over Goa and other areas on the western coast of India. The author points out the writing of Ralph Fitch, who, in 1588, traveled to the Malay Peninsula and visited Malacca, now in Malaysia, where he learned much about trade with China and the Spice Islands, now the Moluccas. The paper presents the writings of traveler Edward Terry, who promoted the Christian morality to the English merchants in the East Indies, and of Ivo Kamps and Jyotsna Singh, who included a wide range of observations of the types of foods grown, the appearances of the various landscapes and cultural.

From the Paper:

"By the 1350s, the whole imperial colossus of India was beginning to unravel. In 1398, it received a death blow from an invasion by Tamerlane, the great conqueror of central Asia. Tamerlane's incursion was brief, but it shattered India's central authority, laying waste to Punjab and leaving the Delhi Sultanate clinging to a small area around its pillaged capital. In time, the sultanate recovered some of its earlier power, but it never again approached all-Indian dominion. However, its rule had a lasting impact by bringing about an intermingling of Muslim and Hindu peoples and ideas, mostly because of the policy of religious tolerance that circumstances required. It also brought about the use of Persian as the official language in place of the ancient Sanskrit."

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