Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c5.s1.2

v1.c5.s1.2

The history of commercial exchanges between India and China is very long. More than 3,000 years ago, a large number of seashells from the coast of the Bay of Bengal was unearthed in Sichuan and Yunnan. These seashells were ancient currencies, indicating that there had been trade contacts between Sichuan, Yunnan and countries such as India and Burma (Myanmar) at that time. India was the origin of Asiatic cotton, with a long history of producing cotton textiles. A piece of cotton cloth from more than 3,000 years ago was unearthed in Fujian, China, which is the earliest evidence of cotton cloth ever discovered in here. Since there was no cotton in China at that time, it is considered by many scholars that this piece of cotton cloth probably came from India.