Compare And Contrast The Silk Road And Indian Ocean Trade Networks

As two of the biggest early trade networks, the Silk Roads and Indian Ocean trade networks greatly impacted the regions they touched. The effects on culture throughout the area were not only on the wealthy, but even to the poor. Even though the Silk Roads and Indian Oceans trade networks had different effects on language and maritime technology advancement, they had similar effects on religion from 300-1200 CE. Both the Silk Roads and the Indian Ocean trade networks spread religions such as Christianity and Buddhism. In the Indian Ocean network, Arabic developed as the main trade language, but on the Silk Roads there was no single main language. Another difference is that maritime technology developed and evolved through the Indian Ocean trade networks, but not in the

Christian missionaries traveled along the silk roads to China and tried to spread their religion there. Similarly, Christianity spread to Axum and Kerala through the Indian Ocean trade network. Likewise, Buddhism was also spread through these trade networks. Merchants who liked Buddhism shared it with the locals wherever they went. Because of this, Buddhism spread to Central Asia and China from South Asia. Buddhist monasteries that were constructed along the Silk Roads offered sanctuaries to merchants where they could rest on their journeys. This offered another incentive to merchants to spread Buddhism. Although Buddhism may have never become to the major religion in China especially, it introduced new ideas that were sometimes assimilated into Chinese culture. Through the Indian Oceans trade network, Buddhism spread throughout Southeast Asia where it quickly became a major influencer. Evidence of this can be found in the construction of large Buddhist monasteries such as Borobudur in Java. The spread of Buddhism through both trade networks was similar in that merchants were the main