Heritage Archive

In Maldivian folklore, the Dagas appears consistently as a place marking the boundary of the human world. In the narrative of the origin of tuna in the Maldives, a mālimi (navigator) sails beyond ordinary routes until the sea thins and appears to fall away; at this limit stands the Dagas, described as a coral-like tree rising through powerful currents, at whose base extraordinary striped fish are encountered and brought back through ritual practice and navigational knowledge.

Early Buddhist literature, whose earliest layers are generally dated to c. 5th–3rd century BCE and transmitted orally before later written redactions, contains several accounts that blur the boundaries between myth, geography, and lived maritime experience. Among the most evocative of these is a passage found in Jātaka Tales, which describes a long ocean voyage departing from Bharukaccha (modern Bharuch, Gujarat). During this journey, the ship encounters a sequence of extraordinary seas collectively referred to as the Seas of Māla.

The significance of cowrie shells in early trade in these islands is stressed by the historian H. C. P. Bell, the anthropologist C. Maloney, and the archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl. The small cowrie shell had placed the Maldives on the map long before documented history began in the islands.