In the final days of December 2025, a wooden ship quietly slipped out of Porbandar harbour in Gujarat and turned westward into the Arabian Sea. Over the next fifteen days, it would sail towards Muscat in Oman, tracing—at least symbolically—sea routes that once linked the Indian subcontinent with ports across the Indian Ocean. The vessel was INSV Kaundinya, a reconstructed “stitched ship” inspired by ancient shipbuilding traditions that flourished around the first millennium CE.

The voyage, though modest in scale, carried a weight far greater than the distance it covered. For its backers, Kaundinyarepresented an effort to reconnect India with a maritime heritage that has long been overshadowed by land-based histories of empires, kingdoms and conquests. For historians, it raised important questions about how the past is reconstructed, represented and sometimes simplified in the present.

A ship from the past, rebuilt for the present

INSV Kaundinya is named after a semi-legendary mariner believed to have sailed across the Indian Ocean in ancient times. The ship is built using a stitched-ship technique, in which wooden planks are sewn together with coir rope rather than fastened with nails. This method, known to produce a flexible hull capable of absorbing the stresses of open-sea travel, was widely used across the Indian Ocean world in antiquity.

Constructed in Goa under the guidance of master shipwright Babu Shankaran, Kaundinya is a 20-metre, two-masted vessel. Its keel is made from Indian laurel, the stem and stern from teak, and the planks from wild jack wood. After shaping and steaming, the planks were stitched together with coir rope, and the seams sealed using a mixture of coconut fibre, fish oil and resin. The technique draws on knowledge preserved in Kerala’s kettuvallams and other sewn-plank boats that once dotted the coasts of Goa and the Lakshadweep islands.

The ship’s visual elements also reference India’s cultural past. Its sails carry the Gandaberunda, the royal emblem of the Kadamba dynasty that once ruled parts of the Konkan coast, while its prow features the Simha Yali, a mythical creature commonly seen in south Indian temple architecture.

A voyage rich in symbolism

Kaundinya embarked on its maiden voyage on December 29, 2025, sailing from Porbandar to Muscat. Political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several BJP MPs, highlighted the journey on social media, framing it as proof of India’s ancient maritime prowess and technological sophistication. Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and the intellectual force behind the initiative, described the voyage as an experiment to understand the strengths, limitations and lived experience of ancient mariners.

By the fifteenth day of the journey, as the ship entered Omani waters, Sanyal noted that the primary objective had been achieved: demonstrating that stitched ships from the subcontinent could cross open seas. In that sense, the voyage functioned as experimental archaeology, testing hypotheses about ancient ship design through practical experience rather than textual speculation alone.

Beyond scholarship, the journey also served a diplomatic purpose. Sailing into Oman, a historic node in Indian Ocean trade networks, Kaundinya underscored the shared maritime heritage of the region at a time when India is seeking to deepen its engagement with the wider Indian Ocean world.

Where history becomes complicated

Yet historians of the Indian Ocean caution against reading too much into the voyage. While acknowledging its symbolic and educational value, they stress the need to distinguish between modern reconstructions and historical reality.

One major concern is that stitched-ship technology was not uniquely Indian. According to historian Himanshu Prabha Ray, sewn-plank boats were part of a broader Indian Ocean littoral tradition stretching from the Arabian Peninsula to Southeast Asia. Designs varied widely depending on region, function and period. Even within Oman, different stitched vessels were built for different purposes. There was no single, standard model that represented the entire Indian Ocean world.

Another point of contention lies in the evidence used to reconstruct Kaundinya. The ship is not a replica of any excavated vessel. Instead, it is based primarily on a fifth-century mural from the Ajanta Caves, which depicts a ship at sea. Maritime historian Rila Mukherjee argues that relying on visual art alone is problematic. Over the decades, scholars have interpreted the Ajanta ship in very different ways—some seeing it as Indian, others as Southeast Asian or more broadly South Asian. There is no consensus, and a mural, she suggests, is an uncertain foundation for reconstructing a seaworthy ocean-going vessel.

Comparisons and contrasts

The debate becomes sharper when Kaundinya is compared with Oman’s Jewel of Muscat, a stitched ship built around fifteen years ago. The Jewel was based on a ninth-century shipwreck discovered off the coast of Indonesia, and its design drew directly from archaeological material recovered from the seabed. Like Kaundinya, it was constructed by Babu Shankaran, but its historical grounding was firmer. For critics, this contrast highlights the speculative nature of Kaundinya’s design.

Ray, however, suggests that such disagreements are inevitable. Indian Ocean history was never uniform or straightforward. Maritime movement included not only long-distance traders but also fishermen, pilgrims, coastal communities and seasonal travellers. Ships evolved over time and were adapted to specific ecological and economic needs. Expecting a single “authentic” design, she argues, misunderstands the very nature of the Indian Ocean world.

The larger context: Project Mausam and maritime neglect

The Kaundinya voyage is often linked to Project Mausam, a Ministry of Culture initiative announced in 2014 to pursue a UNESCO transnational nomination for Indian Ocean cultural routes. The project aimed to highlight centuries of exchange driven by monsoon winds, but progress has been uneven. According to Ray, it has struggled to build sustained partnerships with other Indian Ocean nations or develop long-term collaborative research programmes in maritime archaeology.

This shortfall reflects a deeper problem. Despite its long coastline and oceanic history, India has invested relatively little in maritime research. Many coastal cities lack maritime museums, underwater archaeology remains underfunded, and even flagship projects such as the National Maritime Heritage Complex at Lothal rely heavily on models and riverine craft rather than sustained work at sea.

“You cannot build maritime history without investing in maritime research,” Ray argues, pointing to decades of institutional neglect.

Rediscovering the sea

Historian Radhika Seshan takes a more accommodating view of Kaundinya’s symbolic value. She notes that India has only recently begun to look seaward again after decades of academic and institutional indifference to maritime history. For much of the post-Independence period, universities paid little attention to the ocean, and state institutions followed suit. The Indian Coast Guard itself was established only in 1977.

As a result, many living traditions faded. Catamarans once central to fishing and coastal travel along the Tamil Nadu coast have largely been replaced by fibreglass boats. Traditional navigation knowledge survived mainly through oral transmission rather than formal archives.

Today, Seshan observes, a new generation of researchers—often working independently—is documenting boat traditions, coastal communities and oral histories. But without sustained investment in museums, archives and archaeology, India’s maritime past risks being invoked more often than it is truly understood.

Between invocation and understanding

INSV Kaundinya occupies an uneasy space between history and imagination, scholarship and symbolism. It does not—and perhaps cannot—offer definitive answers about how ancient Indian Ocean ships were built or sailed. What it does offer is a starting point: a reminder that the seas were once central to the subcontinent’s economic, cultural and intellectual life.

Whether this voyage marks a genuine turning point will depend on what follows. Without deeper research, international collaboration and institutional commitment, maritime glory may remain something India celebrates rhetorically rather than studies seriously. In that sense, Kaundinya is less a conclusion than an invitation—to look seaward again, with curiosity, rigour and humility.