For over a thousand years, India stood at the center of an ancient world that spanned from Rome to China, shaping far-off cultures with its wealth of ideas, innovations, and goods. At a time when Roman elites proudly displayed Indian silks and spices, India’s influence reached well beyond trade, touching the religious, intellectual, and cultural life of distant empires. Indian ideas reshaped beliefs in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, while foundational discoveries in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine spread across the ancient world. In The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, William Dalrymple explores India’s significant yet often overlooked role in shaping Eurasian civilization, a vast area spreading over Asia and Europe, showing how Indian culture and trade stretched over every corner of the ancient world.
Dalrymple argues that before the famed Silk Road connected East and West, India’s “Golden Road” was the real hub of ancient Eurasian exchange, linking the Mediterranean to the Pacific and creating what he calls the “Indosphere,” the network of trade routes bringing Indian merchants to distant lands, carried by the monsoon winds, where they traded spices, cotton, ivory, and gems, leaving a deep imprint on the tastes and lifestyles of their trading partners. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder famously complained about the outflow of gold and silver to pay for Indian luxuries, seeing it as a drain on the empire’s wealth. Dalrymple illustrates how this appetite for Indian goods permeated the Roman Empire, from soldiers at Hadrian’s Wall craving Indian pepper to Roman aristocrats wearing Indian jewels.
However, Dalrymple’s account reaches beyond trade, as he brings to light the spiritual and intellectual legacy India shared with the world. Buddhism spread across Asia to become a major influence in China, Japan, and Korea. Hindu culture also spread throughout Southeast Asia, leaving awe-inspiring temples like Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest Hindu temple complex on earth. Dalrymple recalls his own first encounter with Angkor Wat, which led him to explore the vast Indian cultural influence that reached beyond India’s borders.
India’s legacy also includes major contributions to science and mathematics. Dalrymple highlights India’s development of the decimal system, key concepts in algebra and trigonometry, and the numerals we use today, which eventually traveled westward, transforming mathematics in Europe. By the 13th century, Indian innovations had crossed into the Islamic world and would ultimately become foundational to modern science and technology.
The Golden Road is filled with Dalrymple’s vivid descriptions and his gift for storytelling. Drawing on years of research, he brings history to life with colorful details of temples, sculptures, and ancient texts that reflect India’s influence across the ancient world. His writing blends historical facts with lively scenes, from Roman emperors marveling at Indian goods to Chinese monks enduring desert journeys in search of Buddhist teachings.
Unlike histories that center on the Silk Road, The Golden Road places India at the heart of the world’s oldest exchange networks. Dalrymple notes that this central role began to fade only with the Mongol conquests, which opened new routes between Europe and China, and the rise of Muslim empires in India, which interrupted direct trade routes to the West. Yet India’s cultural and intellectual legacy continued to echo across Eurasia, re-establishing its early prominence as an exporter of ideas and innovation.
For readers familiar with Dalrymple’s previous works, The Golden Road resonates personally, reflecting his fascination with India’s religious and cultural heritage. But this book is more than a historical study—it’s a tribute to an ancient world shaped by Indian ideas, beliefs, and inventions.
The Golden Road is a captivating journey through history that recast India’s role on the global stage. Dalrymple’s blend of scholarship and storytelling brings to life a vibrant era during which India stood at the crossroads of the world. It’s an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the deep and lasting connections that have shaped the world and a powerful reminder of how ancient India influenced civilizations far beyond its borders.
