Pre-modern trade and cultural links between distant places were established by the Silk Routes. (i) For example: The silk route linked the West and China as silk cargoes were carried along this route. Historians have mentioned and identified several silk routes over land and by sea which brought together vast areas of Asia and linked Asia with Europe and Northern Africa. (ii) Chinese pottery travelled to India through these routes, even before the Christian era, and textiles and spices from India and South-East Asia; precious metals, like gold and silver,flowed from Europe to Asia. (iii) Trade and cultural exchange took place at the same time. Buddhism emerged from eastern India and spread in several directions through the silk route. Christian missionaries travelled through these routes to Asia, as did the early Muslim preachers a few centuries later.