Ghogha Essay

Ghogha as an Important Trade Port in Medieval Period

Ghogha has been an important trade centre since the ancient period. During the medieval period that is during the Mughal dynasty as well as the Solanki Dynasty it flourished very much during this period.

Ghogha Port (during the ancient period)

Ghogha is a census town in the Bhavnagar District of Gujarat State, India. It is an ancient port situated south east to Saurashtra, at sea shore, 64 K.M. away from the estuary of Khambhat and 18 K.M. away from the Bhavnagar district.

There is this famous proverb which says “lanka ni ladi ne ghoghano var” which shows that we had relations with the SRI Lankans. It is believed that we had matrimony relations with the Gujarati’s staying in Lanka. It’s a historical fact that the Gujarati’s settled in Java and developed their organizations. The Gujarati’s who went there, they settled their and earned enormously amount of wealth. There were business relationships with the Sri Lankans at that time which cannot be denied at all.

It was for the first time that the Ghogha port was referred during the Valbhi ruling period as “Gundighadh” (480-720). There was ship yard and to park ships there were so many stone anchors. It was a famous port during that point of time, Mokhdaji the grandson of Sejakji (1240-1290) who was the

at the beginning of the Mughal Era, the development of the ports was affected. The Khambhat port became inactive due to the development of Surat port. After that the Ghogha port was also being affected. Abul Fazal has described in his AIN I AKBARI, Ghogha as an important port. Ghogha was a famous boatbuilding center during the Mughal period. Being located at a strategic point on the western end of the gulf, Ghogha was attacked and captured many times by local rulers such as Gohel Rajputs and Mohammedans. With the emergence of Bhavnagar in the early nineteenth century, Ghogha lost its importance as major port in the gulf of