ABSTRACT
When the Chinese talk about the Southern Silk Route, we in India at once think about the east and north-east Indian road to China via Myanmar. The initial inkling was provided by Kautilya of the fourth century BC in his Arthashastra where he remarked on Cinapattasca Cinabhumija. In ancient India, there was a trade route from Peshawar to Parvatipur in Bangladesh. It passed through Wazirabad, Lahore, Jalandhar, Saharanpur, Lucknow, Tirhut and Katihar extending further to Assam from Parvatipur. Some Indian scholars debating on the possible existence of a historical highway between Kamrupa in Assam and China through Myanmar are affirmative about such a highway, while some others hold the opposite view. Silk route or any other road is not made by the rulers but by the common people like the villagers, tribes, traders from various areas and also by the religious preachers.
