That might explain something else--by the seventeenth century CE, we'd expect the Indian Ocean and China seas to be infested with aggressive European traders--indeed after a couple centuries of Portuguese messing around with the local politics we'd by now be seeing English and Dutch fleets trying to muscle in. And before that, for something close to a thousand years, Muslim merchant/raiders/adventurers would have long ago stolen dominance on these seas from the Hindus.
The latter seem to have been preempted, for the most part or completely, and the implications of that might imply a massive butterflying of Europe, which might be sunk in an extended Dark Age, or perhaps strongly unified under an effective Emperor or perhaps the Papacy, to the point that they discourage the OTL voyages of exploration, or have been checked before rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
Correct. Europe in this TL is in shambles. If I ever expand this story beyond the scope of Ponniyar's adventures in Hawaii, we'll see how various North and West African powers have made a habit out of launching slave raids into Ireland, France, and Spain. Trade-wise, they're largely out of the picture; while ancient Greece and Rome pique some interest amongst the scholars of this TL's civilized world, the rest of Europe is viewed much like Africa was in the early modern period--as something of a shithole. I'll elaborate more on Europe later; I'm not fully certain on the details yet, and at the moment it's not a central part of the story.
Arabs are in a similar state. Islam in its legitimate form doesn't really exist in this TL due to the sheer amount of butterflies, but an alternate version does exist. It's not nearly as powerful as it was OTL, being present(not predominant, present), in the Levant and parts of northern Africa. It's presence in India is generally minimal, to the point where Ponniyar would probably view the alt-Muslims as just one of many thousands of minor sects. At the time of the story, the Middle East is dominated by Zoroastrians and Jews, and plays home to a variety of different faiths. It's considerably less developed and civilized than it was OTL.
A variation of Buddhism that includes doctrines of aggressive class conflict and messianic populism might conceivably arrest the advance of Islam eastward, or even preempt it completely. Much of the punch of the Islamic expansion in the days of the Prophet and afterward came from the sort of activism against popular grievances against the rich and powerful that the Buddhist missionary to Kozhikode stirred up (although he did it rather clumsily and ineffectively). If this brand of Buddhism made it to the Hejaz then the Arabs might simply be among the Buddhist heretics Ponniyar hates so much; they might have failed to make so much progress against the Romans (due to having less doctrinal common ground with the Christians they as much liberated as conquered OTL) and the Arabs are not as mighty a people as OTL, or anyway split up between Buddhists, pagans, and Christians.
One would still expect quite a few Arab sea traders--but perhaps they must either merge with the Hindu-dominated religions of the Indian Ocean, or have been ruthlessly hunted down by Cholas such as Ponniyar, ages ago.
The coastal Arabs are avid traders, but, like many others, they generally toe the line once they involve themselves with a major power like the Cholamandal. They aren't very significant and don't cause many problems. The Cholas aren't really bigoted towards non-Buddhist religions and peoples, at least not yet. Even then, there are still plenty of Buddhists in the Cholamandal; it's only the Godhama and Amitabha Buddhas who draw actual, violent ire.
Finally--the title of the timeline mentions a "Hindu Polynesia," but it seems not to be the case here at all. The Hindu sailing peoples appear to dominate the Indian Ocean and Indonesia, and carry most or all of the China trade, but precisely where "Polynesia" begins seems to be where their direct influence ends. Very possibly the Polynesians themselves adopted specifically Hindu ideas before they began to colonize the Pacific? But anyway it seems they are not reporting back to their cultural mentors if that is the case; the Cholas know nothing of the Pacific interior or its peoples. And if these Polynesians are in any sense Hindu-influenced, it would seem not to an extent that gives them the same hatred of Buddhism "enjoyed" back in India itself--rather, whether their prior religion was purely the Polynesian one of OTL, or flavored by ATL Hindu influences, they have no problem hosting Buddhists seeking to make refuges in their islands.
It would seem more like it's a Buddhist Polynesia versus a vengefully Hindu old world coming after them.
At the moment, Hawaii's neither Hindu nor Buddhist, let alone all of Polynesia. The general plot of this story will revolve around the transportation of the Hindu-Buddhist conflict to places like Hawaii.
It would seem none of the people in our story know anything about the Hawaiian Islands yet, do they? That makes some sense since they managed to go undiscovered by anyone but their colonizers (who soon forgot how to sail back the way they came, so they were out of contact and knowledge of even their fellow Polynesians) until the nineteenth century was nearly at hand.
Yep, he might survive in theory, and the nature of the story suggests he somehow will--but that's plot driven, not logic-driven!
We'll see about that