Hippalus (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

: Ἵππαλος) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

navigator and merchant who probably lived in the 1st century BCE. He is sometimes conjectured to have been the captain of the Greek explorer Eudoxus of Cyzicus' ship.

Use of monsoon

The writer of the 1st-century CE ''

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' (), also known by its Latin name as the , is a Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman periplus written in Koine Greek that describes navigation and Roman commerce, trading opportunities from Roman Egyptian ports lik ...

'' credited Hippalus with discovering the direct route from the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

Tamilakam Tamilakam () also known as ancient Tamil country as was the geographical region inhabited by the ancient Tamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian subcontinent. Tamilakam covered today's Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, La ...

over the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

by plotting the scheme of the sea and the correct location of the trade ports along the Indian coast.

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

claimed that Hippalus discovered not the route, but the

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

wind also called ''Hippalus'' (the south-west monsoon wind). Most historians have tried to reconcile the reports by stating that knowledge of the monsoon winds was necessary to use the direct route, but the historian André Tchernia explains that Pliny's connection between the wind and the navigator was based on common pronunciation: in the Hellenistic era the name of the wind was written as ''Hypalus'', only in Roman times the spelling ''Hippalus'' came into use. The wind had already been known in Hellenistic times and had before been used by

Himyarite Himyar was a polity in the southern highlands of Yemen, as well as the name of the region which it claimed. Until 110 BCE, it was integrated into the Qataban, Qatabanian kingdom, afterwards being recognized as an independent kingdom. According ...

(Southern Arabian Semites) and Indian sailors to cross the Indian Ocean.

Significance

To understand the importance of Hippalus' discovery we have to know that before him Greek geographers thought that the Indian coast stretched from west to east. Hippalus was probably the first (in the West) to recognize the north–south direction of India's west coast. Only someone who has this insight will think crossing the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

might be a faster way to

south India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

than following the coastline. The use of Hippalus' direct route greatly contributed to the prosperity of trade contacts between the Roman province of Aegyptus and India from the 1st century BCE onwards. From

ports like Berenice large ships crossed the Arabian Sea to the Malabar coast and

Muziris ''Muciṟi'' (, ), commonly anglicized as Muziris (, Malayalam, Old Malayalam: ''Muciṟi'' or ''Muciṟipaṭṭaṇam'', possibly identical with the medieval ''Muyiṟikkōṭŭ'') was an ancient harbour and urban centre on India's Malabar C ...

port, Tamil kingdoms of the Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras in present-day

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

Legacy in science and literature

In 1935, a crater on the Moon was named after the navigator. Hippalus is also a prominent character in

L. Sprague de Camp Lyon Sprague de Camp (; November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000) was an American author of science fiction, Fantasy literature, fantasy and non-fiction literature. In a career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, both novels and works of ...

's 1969 novel about Eudoxus, '' The Golden Wind.'' He is also mentioned in the Tamil novel '' Veera Yuga Nayagan Vel Paari.''

References

*Federico De Romanis and André Tchernia, ''Crossings: Early Mediterranean Contacts with India'' (New Delhi 1997) {{Authority control Ancient Greek explorers Ancient Greek merchants Ancient Greeks in Africa Maritime navigators 1st-century BC Greek people History of Kerala Explorers of Asia Ancient explorers Roman-Indian relations