We’ve come to know the Silk Road loosely as a metaphor for the trickle trade across Asia as silk and other valuables were transported from mainland China to as far as the Roman Empire, but the phenomenon we’ve come to know as the Silk Road also facilitated the diffusion of ideas and religions.
Hinduism, considered to be one of the world’s oldest actively practiced religions, was founded in the Indian subcontinent. Its role along the Silk Road was surprisingly small compared to the effects of other religions such as Buddhism. This is in part believed to be because of the natural anti-trade because during the tenth century, the ruling elite in India had begun to denounce trade as beneath them, as well as discourage interaction with strangers. [1]
The contrast between Buddhism and Hinduism is significant. The wariness experienced by Hindu philosophers in relation to a market economy produces a number of side effects. Namely reduced foreign trade. As we’ve seen, the Silk Road facilitated change through trade and the tendency of cultural and even philosophical ideas to move with physical goods is undeniable. Wherever the merchant goes, so too does their worldview, and in doing so the religions, languages, and customs may find themselves new soil in which to grow.[2]
Through the eighth to twelfth century, Hindu restriction on maritime trade further hindered the spread of Hinduism, which resulted in the proliferation of Islamic, Jewish, and Buddhist trade routes that would both strengthen economic cultural ties.[3] We have predominantly dealt with land routes in our project, but there was in fact a flourishing series of maritime trade routes that shuffled goods from the ports of India down and around up to China. We know that India at one point was a great exporter of several goods, but the pressure from the growing control of Hinduism within the larger society may have curtailed trade in ways that halted the spread of Hindu ideas and religious practices.
Despite the intermittent periods of self-imposed stagnation, the spread of Hinduism saw its most significant growth prior to the stagnate period, between the 4th and 8th centuries. It was during this period that traveling mystical sects would sing the praises of Hinduism in an attempt to spread the religion as they traveled[4]
In the context of our project, Hinduism offers an interesting insight into why things potentially didn’t travel as freely as you would have imagined along the Silk Road. We’ve run into dozens of physical goods, as well as services and ideas, that travelled frequently along the trade routes that dotted Asia. A combination of internal desire to avoid the potentially negative influence of a trade-driven society, stricter sacred laws, and distaste for strangers and the outside world all contributed to the low level of movement that Hinduism achieved. We see it as one of the few religions that didn’t slowly trickle across the continent in the same way that Islam and Buddhism did, which is equally as interesting and informative.
[1] Northrup, 461.
[2] Elverskog, 23.
[3] Elverskog, 33.
[4] Northrup, 461.
Northrup, Cynthia Clark, et al. Encyclopedia of World Trade: from Ancient Times to the Present : From Ancient Times to the Present, edited by Spencer Tucker, Taylor & Francis Group, 2004, ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=2011181.
Elverskog, Johan. Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/pitt-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3441695.