advent of Europeansto discover new sea route to india was inavitible
Answers
Mr Viswanathan, Mr Pant and Mr Duraisamy have given perfectly good answers to the question. In my opinion, the other reasons are: The Treaty of Tordessilas and The Age of Discovery.
From Roman times and at least till the fifteenth century, dependence on Indian products (mainly cloth and spices) had grown manifold. But then there was the so-called “tyranny of Ptolemy”. Ptolemy’s map showed that India was encircled
by Africa and hence could not be reached by sea if you sailed around Africa
from Europe. Trade therefore, had naturally taken the land route through the Hindu Kush to the Levant for many centuries by the so-called 'Silk Route' and is therefore referred to by historians as the Levant Trade. This was a cozy arrangement for centuries till the overlords of the Middle East and North Africa got a little too ambitious and started increasing the taxes and levies of the goods passing
through their lands under their suzeranity. This meant continuously rising prices of Indian products in Europe to a prohibitive level as explained by Mr Viswanathan. This simple fact resulted in momentous events whose echoes resound in India even today.
The fifteenth century brought in the Age of Discovery. King Henry (the Navigator) had already commenced the exploration of the west African coast and Batholomeu Diaz had already reached the southernmost tip of Africa. These discoveries spurred the rivalry of Spain and Portugal who, though Catholic, were constantly at war among themselves and jointly against the Ottoman Turks. In fact the Pope had to intervene to bring Portugal and Spain to the table where the Treaty of Tordessilas was hammered out in 1494. The Treaty of Tordesillas effectively divided the entire known and unknown world between the two Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal.
By this treaty, a meridian was drawn through Azores and all new lands
discovered to the west of this line would belong to Spain and to the East would
belong to Portugal. Other nations like the French, the English and the Dutch were aghast at the way the world was being carved up between these two Catholic nations.
This Treaty had been enacted in the wake of the Discovery of the Americas in 1492
by Columbus. Shortly thereafter, sailing east in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty, on 19 May 1498, Vasco da Gama landed just 10 kilometers north of Calicut (present day Kozhikode) in Kerala, South India, and, as you know, changed the course of the history of the world! This can also be taken as the starting point of major foreign influence in India.
Thus, we can say that the reasons for exploration of an alternate sea- route to India was: 1) To bypass the avaricious chieftains along the Silk Route between India and the Levant and find a quicker and less risky route, 2) The freedom to explore new lands as demarcated by the Treaty of Tordessilas and 3) In the spirit of the Age of Discovery started by Henry the Navigator to facilitate the Crusades against the Ottomans and discover new lands to colonize.
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NOTE 1
Although Vasco da Gama’s circumnavigation of Africa was trumpeted as the
first time man had done so, later researchers have found that an Egyptian
expedition sponsored by Pharaoh Necho BC 600-560 first circumnavigated Africa
but in the opposite direction. They started from the Red Sea and sailing southeast rounded the tip of Africa and then sailing northwest reached the Straits of Gibraltar whereupon they sailed east on the Mediterranean to return to Egypt.
NOTE 2
Since the Europeans, did not have goods to offer in trade for their needs
of spices and cloth from the east, they had to pay in gold, silver and other
precious goods. This accelerated their conquest of the Americas because of the vast
mines (especially of silver) that existed there. Thereby started the slave trade from west Africa to Mesoamerica to work the plantations and mine the silver and gold so that this plunder could be carried to Europe who then used it to buy goods from India and China. Thus, indirectly and unknowingly, India and China became the raison d'etre of the slave trade which is the cause of much racial unrest even to this day. This was also the beginning of globalization of trade.
NOTE 3:
Dom Pedro Cabral, a Portuguese admiral, following the charts of Vasco da Gama, took an exceptionally wide south westward arc while navigating the Atlantic from Portugal to India via the Cape of Good Hope. Suddenly and very unexpectedly, he made landfall and realised that he was still east of the Meridian of Tordessilas and so he claimed this newly-discovered land for Portugal. This was the eastern tip of Brazil north of the mouth of the mighty Amazon. Thus till today, Brazil is the only Portuguese speaking country in the whole of the Americas!