Horses, Harbors, and History
How the Quest for Arabian War Horses Shaped South India
In 1486, a merchant ship rocks gently in the harbor of Goa. On its deck are thirty-five Arabian horses – assuming all survived the treacherous journey across the Arabian Sea. A customs official carefully notes down their arrival in his ledger: each horse is worth roughly 100-150 pardaos (gold coins). To put that in perspective, you could feed a family for two years with the cost of just one. So why did rulers, not just in the Deccan, but across India spend these princely sums? This wasn’t extravagance, but desperation arising from an arms race between South Indian kingdoms. And the arrival of the Portuguese in 1498 only made matters worse.
The horse trade between the Middle East and India was ancient even by medieval standards. By 1000 BCE, Assyrian records mention Indian rulers requesting "blood horses" from West Asia. The trade routes were well-established during the Persian Empire, with careful records of horse exports to Indian territories. The Arab conquest of Sindh in 712 CE further strengthened these equine trading networks, establishing patterns that would persist into the medieval period.
Climate, Genetics and Military Necessity
The hot, humid climate of the Deccan plateau wasn't ideal for breeding war horses. Local Indian breeds, while sturdy, weren't quite up to the task of carrying heavily armored cavalry into battle. As the Persian historian Wassaf rather bluntly put it in his chronicles,
"The horses bred here have narrow chests, weak legs, and nasty tempers – in short, they're worthless for war."
The Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf regions had been breeding exceptional war horses for centuries. These horses were larger, stronger, and crucially, bred for warfare. Contemporary records from the Bahmanid sultanate tell us that a first-rate Arabian war horse could carry a fully armored warrior for hours in the scorching Deccan heat, something local breeds struggled with.
Logistics - medieval style
As we found out during the 2019 CoVID pandemic, many things we buy not only originate far away but often traverse a “supply chain” that’s long and complicated. For instance, canned tuna that an American consumer buys take a convoluted journey from the fishing boat they are first caught in to your supermarket shelf. This makes a modern seafood supply chains (figure 1) highly fragmented and difficult to track.
So we can’t help marvel at the medieval trading networks that brought war horses to India. Merchants from Hormuz and Yemen would time their shipments with the monsoon winds. The horses were transported in specialized vessels called tarida (plural: taraid), which were specifically designed for the challenging task of marine horse transport. These broad-beamed ships could carry between 20 to 40 horses each, equipped with special open-air stalls on deck and an innovative system of slings to support the animals during rough seas because, as one Arab navigator noted, "horses do not fare well below deck, where the air is stale and the motion most violent."
Even with these precautions, it was a risky business. Records suggest that up to a third of the horses might die during the journey. Those that survived would fetch astronomical prices. Portuguese chronicler and horse trader Fernão Nunes spent three years in Vijayanagara, writes that the kingdom purchased war-horses “dead or alive at 3 for a thousand pardaos. Of those that died at sea they brought just the tail, and he paid for it just as if it had been alive.”
The Portuguese chronicler Tome Pires later observed, "A good horse in Vijayanagar is worth 500-600 pardaos, and some exceptional ones have sold for over 1,000." To emphasize just how extraordinary these prices were: a skilled craftsman in the same period might earn 30-40 pardaos in an entire year.
Ports, Politics, and Profits
The horse trade transformed ordinary harbors into bustling commercial hubs. Bhatkal, Mangalore, and especially Goa became crucial links in a chain that stretched from the Persian Gulf to the Deccan plateau. These weren't just ports - they were medieval versions of military-industrial complexes, complete with specialized quarters for horse merchants, veterinary facilities, and customs houses that dealt exclusively with the equine trade.
“India was at the centre of Indian Ocean trade for centuries (Fig. 15.1). Among the most important mercantile cities were Hindu-controlled Calicut (today Kozhikode), Cannanore (Kannur), Cochin, Quilon (Kollam) and Muslim Goa along the south-western Malabar Coast, and Muslim-controlled Cambay (Khambhat) of Gujarat in the north-western corner of the Kathiawar Peninsula. By the end of the fifteenth century Gujarati sailors were rivalling the Arabs as dominant traders across the Indian Ocean1.”
Muslim merchants dominated this lucrative business, particularly traders from Hormuz and Yemen. They operated through an intricate network of agents and brokers, many of whom became powerful figures in their own right. Take the case of Malik Ayaz, the merchant-turned-governor of Diu, who grew so wealthy from horse trading that he could negotiate with sultans as an equal. His personal fortune reportedly included stables housing over 300 imported horses.
The Portuguese Disruption
When Vasco da Gama first reached India in 1498, he wasn't particularly interested in horses. The Portuguese came for spices. But it didn't take them long to realize that controlling the horse trade could give them more leverage than all the pepper in Malabar.
The capture of Goa in 1510 by Afonso de Albuquerque wasn't just about securing a port - it was about seizing the subcontinent’s premier horse-trading hub. The Portuguese quickly established what they called the "Goa Horse Fair," attempting to regulate and tax every equine transaction along the coast. They even tried to enforce a monopoly where all horses had to pass through Portuguese-controlled ports.
The Vijayanagar Response
For the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar, this Portuguese intervention was nothing short of a strategic crisis. The empire had been spending up to 30,000 pardaos annually on imported horses - a figure that now had to be renegotiated through Portuguese intermediaries. Contemporary court records from Vijayanagar show increasingly desperate attempts to maintain their cavalry, including diplomatic missions to Portuguese Goa offering unprecedented trade concessions in exchange for guaranteed horse supplies.
The kingdom's response was remarkably adaptable. Unable to secure reliable horse supplies through Goa, they began developing alternative trade routes through smaller ports like Bhatkal and Honavar. (This is where we encountered some of our enterprising privateers such as Timoji earlier.) They also started investing heavily in elephant corps and infantry units - a military reorganization that would have lasting consequences for South Indian warfare.
Legacy and Adaptation
By 1520, the landscape of both trade and power in South India had been fundamentally reshaped. The old Muslim merchant networks hadn't disappeared, but they'd been forced to adapt. Some worked with the Portuguese, others found creative ways around them. The price of war horses had nearly doubled in many markets, forcing kingdoms to rethink their military strategies.
This forty-year period between 1480 and 1520 witnessed the transformation of a trade that had existed for centuries. What began as a straightforward commercial exchange between Arab merchants and Indian kingdoms evolved into a complex diplomatic chess game involving Portuguese captains, Deccan sultans, and Vijayanagar emperors. The same Arabian horses that had once simply been expensive military assets became pieces in a larger game of empire and control.
For Further Reading
For readers interested in diving deeper into this fascinating period, these works provide excellent detailed accounts:
"The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500-1700: A Political and Economic History" by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (2012)
Offers detailed insights into how the Portuguese attempted to control the horse trade and its broader implications for South Asian politics.
"A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives" by Richard Eaton (2005)
While not exclusively about the horse trade, provides essential context about the period through biographical accounts, including those of merchants and rulers involved in the trade. I wrote about this book here.
“Stallions of the Indian Ocean” by Srinivas Reddy, in Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond (2020) PDF available here.
Next week, we'll explore another fascinating aspect of medieval Indian history. If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to "History, Mystery and Writing" for more stories that bring the past to life.
Monsoon Islam, J.F. Hancock 2021. Spices, Scents and Silk: Catalysts of World Trade
So interesting! We tend to think of the military industry complex as modern but its not. I really enjoyed reading this.