IN ASIA'S social hierarchy, the status of fishing and maritime communities has always been low. Seventeenth century British trader Thomas Bowrey records how the fishing caste on the Coromandel coast in the east called machua (mukkuvar in modern Tamil) was regarded as the lowest of the Hindu untouchables and lived a segregated existence.

Though they were subjugated, the fisherfolk were great technologists. It was the machuas who developed the flimsy looking masulas and catamarans (kattumarams -- Tamil for tied wood). They were used widely to transport passengers and bulky goods to and from ships, even over rough waters. Bowrey often spotted fisherfolk in catamarans at sea waiting calmly for a hard wind to slacken before heading for shore.

The seminar ended with a proposal to hold a symposium on people and their attitudes toward the sea. Indeed, there are few direct sources that historians can tap to illustrate what people actually thought about the role of the sea in their lives.

Communities are bound by religion and custom, which are necessary because maritime activity is a cooperative venture. In the absence of written records, a sociological understanding of a community's way of life can help to reconstruct the past.

According to Varadarajan, some of the present-day practices of fishing communities in the Sunderbans of West Bengal, for instance, date to an ancient past and can help historians. While at one simplistic level, the rites pertain to the propitiation of the forces of nature, at another, the symbolism is more complex and involves the propitiation of various deities. On the west coast -- Maharashtra and Gujarat -- the seafaring Son Kolis have their own traditions (See box).

Long before India became the jewel in the British crown, Christopher Columbus and his ilk sought India for her wealth. Today, it appears another Indian Ocean search is in the offing and, hopefully, this time it will be for a better world. For this to happen, assumptions about the nature of science and technology need to change. The linear model of the evolution of technology, which assumes that technology begins with theory, has to be discarded. Most technological traditions in India may not be backed by strong theory and are perhaps based on a cumulative sharing of knowledge gained by learning and doing. But they cannot be dismissed as unscientific.

Says Jain, "Those who do so, assume that science begins with the Renaissance in Europe. The linear concept of the history of science, from theory to technology, is out. Nobody believes in it any more."