India through the Gupta Empire: Land and Sea Trade

[From Jensen, Chapter Five] As the Mauryan Empire declined [after 180 B.C.], a succession of foreign kings built a prosperous trading kingdom in Gandhara, which included parts of Afghanistan and northwest India. Soon, the kingdom of Gandhara was expanded into northern India and became an important link between India, central Asia, and the West. The main overland trade route went across the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan. From there, a trade caravan could either travel to Persia and western Asia or take the Silk Road to China. Sea routes . . . also became the avenues of a thriving trade (106, 108).

How cross-cultural interactions through trade routes, with the transfer of technology and ideas, helped to build our modern world is the subject of Southernization, the first half of which we will read this week. Specifically, we will examine its history of interaction between India, Africa, Arabia and China before the rise of Islam.  We will use this Indian Ocean Trade website to view INTERACTIVE MAPS with trade routes and goods.   Later this quarter, we will return to the second half of this article.   

Source: World History: Patterns of Interaction