(2) The arrival of Vasco da Gama, a nobleman from the household of the King of Portugal,at the port of Calicut in south-west India on 27 May, 1498 inaugurated a new,and extremely unpleasant,chapter in Indian history. For some time, the Portuguese,among other Europeans,had been looking for a sea route to India, but they had been unable to break free of the stranglehold exercised by Egyptian rulers over the trade between Europe and Asia. In 1487, the Portuguese navigator, Bartholomew Dias,rounded the “Cape of Good Hope”, and so opened the sea route to India. An expedition of four ships headed out to India in 1497, and arrived in India in slightly less than eleven months’ time. The coming of the Portuguese introduced several new factors into Indian history. As almost every historian has observed, it not only initiated what might be called the European era, it marked the emergence of naval power.