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A.P. Patnaik was born on 25th October, 1933, at the Village Patrapada, located near Bhubaneswar, in Orissa. With Master’s degrees in History and Education from Utkal University, though he started his career as a School-teacher, soon he was appointed as the Technical Officer, State Health Education Bureau, Orissa. In the year 1972, he went abroad under a W.H.O. fellowship programme and studied for two years in the School of Public Health, under the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., for his degree of Master of Public Health, majoring in Health Education and Population Planning. After coming back to India, he continued as a Health education specialist and was promoted to the rank of the Chief of the ‘State Information, Education and Communication Centre’ for Health & Family Welfare programme, in Orissa. In the year 1982, he was nominated as a member of a Task-force for F.W. communication programme, by the Ministry of Health & Family-Welfare, Government of India, and was required to visit Thailand and Indonesia on a study-tour. While visiting these countries and interacting with the people there, he, for the first time, had a realization of their cultural links with ancient India, and became deeply interested in the subject. At the beginning, he cultivated a hobby of looking for the sites of ancient ports and after successfully locating a few, published papers on them. In this process, he was gradually drawn into exploring the history of maritime activity of the Kalingas and decided to have a fresh look on the subject, by undertaking a research project himself. This task, which he assigned to himself, kept him busy for long fifteen years.