Echoes Across the Sea:

Echoes Across the Sea: Chagas, Divas, and the Lost Linguistic Cartography of the Indian Ocean

1- Introduction

Place-naming is never a neutral act—especially in maritime spaces where trade, faith, and empire

collide. The Indian Ocean, long before European colonization, was a living network of cultures,

languages, and sacred geographies. Among these, the ridge that encompasses today’s Maldives,

Laccadives, and Chagos Archipelago was historically ruled by spiritual leaders or priest-kings,

possibly known as Divas. As colonial powers mapped and renamed the region, they not only redrew lines on maps but also erased the spiritual and linguistic histories embedded in the very names of these islands.

This article traces how the Portuguese term Chagas—meaning “wounds”—may have

been mapped onto these sacred territories, how it transformed over time under French and British rule, and how its remnants echo through words like Dhivehin, Chakas, and Mahal Dvipa.

2- Chagas and the Portuguese Cartographic Gaze

The word “Chagas”, meaning “wounds” in Portuguese, is a plural noun often used in

religious contexts—especially the sacred wounds of Christ (as Santas Chagas). During

Portuguese maritime expansion in the 16th century, explorers applied familiar Christian terms

to unfamiliar geographies, interpreting local spiritual orders through their own theological

lens.

It is likely that when the Portuguese encountered the Maldives and surrounding islands, they

saw them as places ruled by spiritually authoritative figures—Divas—who may have been

viewed as wounded or marked in a religious sense. This naming practice likely led to

the labeling of the Chagos Archipelago as “Ilhas Chagas”, later transformed by French and

British tongues into “Chagos”

3- From Divas to Dhivehi: Linguistic Survivals in the Maldives

The term Dhivehin, used today by Maldivians to refer to themselves, likely retains a root

in “Divas,” reflecting a memory of spiritual rule. Ancient references to the Maldives include

names like Maladivas, Mahal Dvipa ("great island"), and Tanga Dvipa, showing the

continuity of the “Dvipa” or “island” concept across South and Southeast Asia.

The Maldives’ official name today, Dhivehi Rajje, means “the Kingdom of the Dhivehin,”

possibly echoing the “Kingdom of the Divas.” This cultural memory persisted until the

country transitioned into a republic in 1968, following independence in 1965.

4- Disconnection of the Ridge: Colonial Fragmentation

Historical records and travelers’ accounts describe the Maldives

Ridge—including Laccadive, Maldives, and Chagos—as a single geographic-cultural continuum. However, colonial rule fragmented this ridge through renaming and boundary

enforcement.

During Portuguese contact, there was partial autonomy in northern Maldives, influenced by

Indian coastal powers like the Chola Dynasty and Ali Raja, a Muslim king from modern-day

Kerala. These influences may explain the naming of adjacent zones like “Laccadive” and the

linking of the term Chagos to the broader “Chagos Ridge.”

5- Fading of “Ch” in Dhivehi: Arabisation and Linguistic Erasure

The letter Chaviyani, which represents the "Ch" sound, is rare in modern Dhivehi. This rarity

is partly due to the strong Arabic influence that followed the introduction of Islam in the 12th

century. Since Arabic lacks the "Ch" phoneme, many Portuguese loanwords—such

as Chagas—gradually fell out of common usage. Furthermore, the absence of a "Ch"

equivalent in Arabic script contributed to phonetic shifts in Dhivehi, such as the

transformation of Dvipa into forms like Deeb or Dib. In contrast, Swahili, spoken on the East African coast (particularly in Tanzania), has a strong “ch” phoneme, as seen in words like chakula (food) and chombo (vessel). This shows that the Bantu-influenced languages retained “Ch”, while Arabised regions like the Maldives did not. Had the term been “Shaka” instead of “Chaka,” it might have survived more

prominently in Dhivehi.

6- Maritime Sacred Geography: From Tanga to Yawa

Historical maritime trade routes tied the Maldives not just to India and Arabia, but to East

Africa and Southeast Asia. Ports like Tanga in Tanzania were key nodes, and there is

evidence suggesting that early travelers and local rulers may have referred to the Maldives

as “Tanga Dvipa”—islands linked through the sea to Maha Dvipa (Maldives) and further

east to Yawa Dvipa (Java).

This sacred geography was united by the presence of Divas or spiritual rulers and was

mapped more by cosmology and spiritual leadership than by political borders—until

colonialism imposed new definitions and divisions.

7- Conclusion

The transformation from Chagas to Chagos, from Divas to Dhivehin, is not just a story of

phonetic drift but a record of imperial erasure, linguistic fading, and sacred memory lost to

time. Names like Tanga Dvipa, Mahal Dvipa, and Dhivehi Rajje still whisper remnants of a

once-unified cultural and spiritual oceanic world—one mapped by the Divas, guided by

maritime cosmology, and fractured by centuries of colonial rule.

As historian Xavier Romero Frías poignantly writes, “In every Maldivian mind there is a

sharp struggle between inherited customs and Muslim ideology…”, highlighting that this

fracture is still felt today—not only in language but in the psyche of a nation caught between

its ancestral cosmology and its religious transformation.