Raid booty to market hogging
Via MT.
Yuanshi records an interesting conversation between kulashekhara Pandya-I & the ambassador of Kubilai Khan. The pANDya states: “All Muslim states make full use of their countries’ natural products- gold, pearls and precious objects [and with] all their surpluses the Muslims come [here] to trade” This suggests that by 1280 CE the Mohd were using their wealth to get a grip on South Indian markets.
They had wealth surplus from being a loot-state from the foundation of their counter-religion by the marusambhavonmatta. Thus they could pump that into acquisition of material in S.India to dominate trade routes. Buy things in India and sell for profit elsewhere.
Consequences
Via MT.
The effect of this was profound on the trajectory of Hindudom. We know from the Khan’s Ishvara temple in Mongol chIna that there were merchants from the tamiL country operating in Kubilai Khan’s realm. But in the years that followed increasing use of their capital to dominate southern markets meant that the ghazis cut off the traditional H trade routes to the far east eventually leading to debacles of H lands of the Malay archipelago. It also limited the options of the Southern H kings when the jihad in the south began shortly there after.
The vijayanagaran focus on rebuilding a navy and repeated efforts to control the Burmese and shrIlankan coasts should be seen as an attempt to regain some of that lost space.