For centuries, the Silk Road has been celebrated as the linchpin of East-West interaction, a fabled conduit for trade and ideas. Yet, William Dalrymple boldly challenges this notion in The Golden Road. Arguing that history has overlooked a far more vital exchange, he illuminates a previously overshadowed path that fundamentally shaped our world.
Dalrymple unveils India as the unsung architect of global interconnectedness. From the dawn of the monsoon, Indian mariners sailed to the farthest corners of the known world, their ships laden with treasures and ideas. Roman elites adorned themselves in Indian garments and jewels, while philosophers pondered the intricacies of Indic thought. India’s influence stretched from the Nile to the Mekong, shaping cultures, economies, and even the way we perceive the universe.
Roman opulence was inextricably linked to India. Dalrymple paints a vivid picture of Roman women adorned in exquisite Indian garments and sparkling with gemstones, the fruits of a thriving trade that stretched across continents. The economic imbalance was so pronounced that Indian empires dispatched envoys to Rome to negotiate payment terms. Pliny the Elder’s famous lament about the colossal sums flowing eastward is a testament to Rome’s insatiable appetite for Indian luxury goods. In fact, the tariffs on these imports were the Empire’s cash cow, generating a third of its total revenue.
The fall of Rome ushered in a new era of trade, with India at its epicentre. Defying the myth of maritime indifference, Indian merchants and Brahmins ventured boldly across the Bay of Bengal to the fabled lands of Suvarnabhumi. This maritime golden road not only exchanged goods but also sowed the seeds of Indian culture. From the bustling markets of Ayutthaya, a city echoing the grandeur of Rama’s Ayodhya, to the Angkorian empire’s devout embrace of Vishnu and Shiva, the influence of India was profound. Cambodia’s Phnom Ken, a sacred mountain crowned with a statue of Krishna, stands as a breathtaking testament to this cultural exchange, a bridge between myth and reality.
India’s cultural impact extended far beyond its borders. Buddhism served as the vehicle for transmitting Indian thought and philosophy to Afghanistan and China. Empress Wu Zeitan, China’s sole female ruler, elevated Buddhism to state religion, inviting Indian monks to translate sacred texts. With Machiavellian brilliance, she cast herself as the prophesied Maitreya Buddha, legitimising her reign. While her successors tempered Buddhist fervour, the legacy of Indian monks, such as the Tantric master Vajrabodhi, endured. Their teachings, infused with elements of Hinduism, shaped the development of Buddhism in Tibet and beyond.
India was also a crucible of intellectual innovation. From the hallowed halls of its ancient universities emerged groundbreaking concepts that would shape the course of human history. Aryabhata and Brahmagupta pioneered mathematics, laying the foundation for modern arithmetic with the discovery of zero and the development of algebraic equations. Their astronomical observations, including the Earth’s spherical shape and rotation, predated European enlightenment by a millennium. The decimal system, another Indian invention, revolutionised commerce and paved the way for the scientific and economic ascendancy of the West.
Dalrymple’s The Golden Road is a revelatory work that has expanded my understanding of India and its profound influence on the world. His meticulous research unveils a history that is both astonishing and criminal in its neglect. This book is a masterpiece, a vital corrective to a long-standing oversight. I fervently hope it becomes a catalyst for a global reappraisal of Indic civilization, finally granting it the acclaim it so richly deserves.
The Golden Road is out on 5th September via Bloomsbury.
Vivek Rajkhowa 
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