Write 3 advantage of land route of india in ancient times
Answers
Land routes have an important part of the economic and cultural dynamics in India since ancient times.
The three main contributions of land routes are:
1. Trade flourished through the land trade routes. The Silk route passing through the Himalayas is an excellent example.
2. Land routes enabled the expansion of scientific knowledge; important breakthroughs in science, technology, and mathematics were communicated to far across lands through ancient routes.
3. The land routes also helped in the understanding of the cultures and traditions of other nations across the world.
The Silk Road spanned the Asian continent and represented a form of global economy when the known world was smaller but more difficult to traverse than nowadays. A network of mostly land but also sea trading routes, the Silk Road stretched from China to Korea and Japan in the east, and connected China through Central Asia to India in the south and to Turkey and Italy in the west. The Silk Road system has existed for over 2,000 years, with specific routes changing over time. For millennia, highly valued silk, cotton, wool, glass, jade, lapis lazuli, gold, silver, salt, spices, tea, herbal medicines, foods, fruits, flowers, horses, musical instruments, and architectural, philosophical, and religious ideas traveled those routes. The roads themselves were generally in poor condition. Travelers in caravans had to brave bleak deserts, high mountains, extreme heat and cold. They had to face bandits and raiders, imprisonment, starvation, and other forms of deprivation. Those going by sea braved the uncertainties of weather, poorly constructed ships, and pirates. Yet because the goods and ideas were in great demand and commanded high prices, courtly rewards, or spiritual benefits, they were worth the trouble of transporting great distances.
Since the concept of "Seidenstrassen" or "Silk Roads" was first invented by the German geologist and explorer Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877, the "Silk Road" has been used as a metaphor of European and Asian cultural interchange. While largely commercial, the Silk Road provided the vehicle for all sorts of creative exchange between tremendously diverse peoples and cultures.
Given the Silk Road's symbolic meaning of sharing and exchange, it is somewhat paradoxical that the desire to control its namesake commodity, silk, was so strong. The ancient Chinese guarded the secret of silk production for centuries. The Ottoman Turks and the Persians fought a war over it. The English and French competed to restrict its markets. But despite such attempts, silk moved across the planet with remarkable ease and was a vehicle of cultural creativity wherever it went. The degree of borrowings and choosing of techniques and patterns, the invention and discovery of uses and styles is incredible. Every culture that touched silk added to its adornment of humanity.
And silk turns up everywhere — aboard medieval Viking ships sailing out of Constantinople and as kerchiefs from India (bandannas, from bandhana) around the necks of cowboys in the American West. The terms used for silk reveal its history and influences. Damask silk, referring to the style of Damascus, Syria, is actually Chinese in origin. Silk chinoiserie is not Chinese but a European imitation of Chinese style. Martha Washington wore a dress of Virginia silk to her husband's inauguration, and Native Americans learned silk embroidery to decorate traditional apparel. In the 19th century Paterson, New Jersey, of all places, declared itself "Silk City."
What is so special about silk? How did it go around the globe, and connect diverse civilizations for millennia? And what is the current significance of the Silk