Changes And Continuities In Trade Between East And South Asia

The defining factor of the Post-Classical era was more transregional interactions, specifically in the form of trading. Trading allowed many different regions of the world exchange their ideas and beliefs, and led to the general advancement of humanity as a whole. Specifically, two major regions involved in trade were East and South Asia. I argue that transregional trade between East Asia and South Asia in the Post-Classical era had extensive trade networks promoting trade and diffusion of ideas and disease stay a continuity. However, trade in this era changed in the way it was conducted, and the types of items that were traded. First, the extensive trade networks in the Post-Classical era allowed for more global interactions. The first of the big trade networks in the era were the Silk Roads, which connected Chinese markets with South Asian, Middle Eastern, African, and to a degree European markets. The ease of trade on the roads caused trading volume between India and China to greatly increase, just as more ideas were diffused. This trend of interconnectedness throughout the world, especially between East and South Asia, increased once

With the help of the Silk Roads, Buddhism was able to move from India into China because the merchants carried the belief system with them. The same thing happened on the Indian Ocean trading system; Indian merchants were able to take Hinduism and Buddhism to China and South Asia. Also, because of the unsanitary conditions of this era, disease was rampant in these trading systems. In the Silk Roads, merchants spread smallpox to their trading locations, causing massive amounts of death in its wake. Similarly, Indian ocean traders carried the Black Plague to places all over the world, including China, India, and Europe. This theme of exponential impacts as the world became more connected remained a continuity in not only this era, but the rest of human