how did buddhism spread through silk routes
Answers
The Silk Road was a vital route not just for physical goods but ideas as well, and it had a significant impact on the spread of Buddhism through Central Asia.
buddhismThe cradle of Buddhism is to be found in Iron Age India. Around the middle of the 1st millennium BC, this region went through a sociol-cultural change known as the second urbanisation; an era marked by intellectual ferment, the composition of the Upanishads and the emergence of Sramanic traditions. Out of this, Buddhism formed between the 6th and 4th centuries BC.
The spread of Buddhism was slow until the time of the time of Emperor Ashoka the Great, who rules most of the Indian subcontinent from circa 268 to 232 BC. He supported the spread of Buddhism, as did his descendants, and mighty efforts were put into the construction of religious memorials and the spread of Buddhism throughout Central Asia and south into Sri Lanka. The Central Asia effort is what eventually brought Buddhism to China, while the Sri Lankan mission helped spread the religion to the coastal lands of Southeast Asia.
Ashoka sent out emissaries to many of the lands west of India, reaching Hellenistic countries in Central and West Asia, and even the Meditteranean and some evidence indicate that these emissaries were accompanied by Buddhist missionaries.