During the post classical era the international trade flourished and evolved far above the capacity of the ancient Silk Road trades with global innovation and a profuse spread of cultural beliefs such as Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism religions, to foreign lands all visited by merchants. The Silk Road trade route stretched from China to Europe and the Indian Ocean trade route was centered in India and traveled along the coast of Southern Asia to Africa.
The trade routes were then diffused by the adaption of new ideas. In the time period of 600-1450 the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade route gained a large number of popularity and wealth being the focal point for new technology, religion, and lavish goods. The two trading centers similarized in that they enabled a widespread of commercial diversity and culture, they differed when it came to the Silk Road depending on political stability. The spreading of new beliefs and religion across trading cites influenced individuals culture. For example, along the Indian Ocean trade route, Islam religion was defused by Muslim merchants who sailed at sea at trading ports whereas the Silk Road dominated the religion Buddhism. Buddhism flourished across the Silk Road and put into authority by the Mongols showing the different types of religion occuring at the network routes.
It is important for one to notice the merchants who traveled along the Indian Ocean trade route influencing people’s values, beliefs, and knowledge to places they traded at. In addition, both the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean trade route established a culture shift in there region and unity. The Indian Ocean trade provided with a wealthy trade center built along the sea and the Mongols encouraged and pressured trade bring wealth to Eurasia.
This increased the worth and wealthiness among the Silk Road merchants. This revealed that the merchants outgrew the agriculture productivity decreasing and shifted to a more agrarian urban society. All in all, the formation of a new religion brought diverse range of culture beliefs and unified the trade networks. The progression of trade routes advanced and developed technological innovations that spread globally. For instance, the Indian Ocean provided with various new technologies such as lateen sail and rudders. This was used for sailing and navigation for when boats are sailed at sea.
This shows that trade advanced through nations and effectively increased trade and innovation. Being that said, the oceanic trade became prominent way of selling lavish goods such as gold, ivory, and slavery. In contrast, the silk roads was under the control of the Mongols and developed a tax system that helped with trade between cities to get more wealth for the state. It’s important to know that China decide to provide paper money to sell and buy goods changing the way merchants exchange to the Silk road.
This showed that the Silk road increases the progress of the Eurasian region. Furthermore, the silk road and indian ocean similarized in that they became unfair towards Muslim merchants and influenced culture mixing with Islam and Hinduism. This demonstrates that the merchants were swelled by all the different types of religion working together in trade. In addition, the Indian Ocean trade could transport large quantities of lavish products were more beneficial than the Silk Road. For example, merchants on the silk road were only limited to products they could only travel with on caravans whereas Indian Ocean merchants can deliver more items because they carried bigger ships. This shows that the Indian merchants had the monsoon winds as an advantage to estimate their travel time. This reveals that monsoon winds and the innovation of newly made ships became prominent in the trading system.
As a result, having trade by sea is an advantage than to trade with animals. Another difference between the trading systems is that Indian Ocean trade was dependable, secure, and inexpensive as opposed to the Silk Roads which was a lengthy journey and unsecure. For example, when merchants traded with indian ocean it was faster and more facile.
Although,there were thieves and pirates it was safer and had bargain goods whereas the silk road fought in bandits and outbreaks of wars were frequent. This demonstrates that the silk roads were dangerous,difficult, and expensive than the indian ocean. Furthermore, the Indian ocean was more stable and developed in terms of new technology. For instance, the indian ocean trade had useful navigational tools and techniques such as astrolabe, magnetic compass, and junk ships which aided and quickened to get to voyages and in contrast to that was simplified to camels and wagons to reach their destination for silk road merchants.
This shows that the Indian trade was more reliable and effective. Lastly, from the trading systems, the indian ocean was more convenient and efficient when trading items and products.In conclusion, the time period of the post classical era, merchants and other individuals on both the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade route transfered new innovations and technology to make more effective travel in deporting commodities like silk, rice, slaves, and ivory.