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NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 14 The chapter in four points — Before we move on …

Book page 59 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.
India and her neighbours share centuries of cultural, spiritual, religious and commercial exchanges. India’s schools of thought and belief, arts, literature and architecture left a visible cultural imprint across countries of Southeast Asia.
Answer

This point gathers up the whole chapter. The imprint is “visible” because you can still point at it, country by country.

CountryWhat is still visible there
ChinaBuddhism, which reached China around the 1st century CE; and at the Kaiyuan temple in Quanzhou, pillars carved in the 13th century with Viṣhṇu, Śhiva and stories from the Rāmāyaṇa and the Purāṇas (Fig. 2.4 shows Gajendra mokṣham).
BhutanVajrayāna Buddhism, brought by Guru Padmasambhava in the 8th century CE, and the vajra and lotus on the national emblem.
Sri LankaBuddhism, brought in the 3rd century BCE by Mahendra and Sanghamitrā; Hinduism, “notably through its two Epics”; mask-making traditions that may connect with south India (Fig. 2.18).
The MaldivesAncient Buddhist temples and inscriptions; the Dhivehi language; roshi and coconut curries; the Boduberu dance echoing Tamil folk rhythms; boat-building techniques with South Indian roots.
ThailandThe names Dvāravatī (from Dvārakā) and Ayutthayā (from Ayodhyā); kings named Rāma; Theravāda Buddhism; Hindu deities and epic stories in royal ceremonies, dance and literature; the samudra manthana sculpture at Suvarnabhumi Airport.
MalaysiaNames such as ‘Srivijaya Kingdom'; a script based on India's Brāhmī adopted around the 4th century CE; influences still visible in art and literature.
SingaporeThe name itself, from ‘Singapuram', ‘lion city'; Tamil as an official language; Buddhism as the most widely practised religion; ‘Little India'.
IndonesiaGaruḍa, the vāhana of Viṣhṇu, on the rupiah; the mandala-shaped Borobudur Stūpa; the Muara Jambi temple complex linked with Nālandā; actors still performing the Rāmāyaṇa (Fig. 2.27).
AfghanistanKingdoms such as Kapiśha and Zābul that “mirrored Indian systems of governance”; the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, symbols of Mahāyāna's reach, destroyed in 2001.
Why the imprint lasted: these ideas were not imposed by conquest, so nobody had to undo them when the traders sailed home. They were adopted because local rulers and people found them useful or beautiful — a script to write with, a story worth retelling, a way of measuring a king's dignity. What a people adopt for themselves, they keep.
Q2.
Ancient trade routes like the Uttarāpatha, Dakṣhiṇāpatha, the Silk Route, and spice routes connected India with Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula, resulting in trade and cultural exchanges with all those regions.
Answer

Four routes, four directions — and every one of them carried more than goods.

  • Uttarāpatha — the ‘northern road'. It “linked the Ganga plains to Central Asia via Afghanistan”, stretching from Gandhāra through Takṣhaśhilā, Varanasi and Pāṭaliputra. The chapter calls it a “cultural superhighway” that “enabled the flow of Buddhism, Hinduism, art, and philosophy”.
  • Dakṣhiṇāpatha — the ‘southern road', linking north India with the peninsula and its ports, from which ships sailed east and west.
  • The Silk Route — the land routes through present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan gradually became part of it, “with people, goods, and ideas moving back and forth, connecting the two lands in the fields of language, literature, art, architecture, food etc.” This is the route that tied India to Iran.
  • The spice routes — the sea lanes across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Indian traders sailed east to Java, Sumatra and Malaya from a few centuries BCE, and west to the Arabian Peninsula; Iran's ports “were within easy reach of India's west coast”, and Harappan traders were carrying copper ingots back from Oman 5,000 years ago.
Why routes carry culture: a trader on a long route does not simply hand over a sack and leave. He waits for a season, learns some of the language, marries, builds a shrine, hires local boat-builders. So a script, a god, a recipe and a word all travel in the same ship as the pepper. Fig. 2.2 in the chapter maps exactly this — the dense web of land and sea routes that made these exchanges possible.
Did you know? The modern versions of these routes are in the chapter too: the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway, the Asian Highway Network (Afghanistan's NH 1 and parts of India's NH 44 both belong to AH 1), and Chabahar Port in Iran, which gives India better access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Q3.
India spread her traditions peacefully through trade, pilgrimage, and culture.
Answer

The evidence for this is that in every case the chapter describes, the carriers were traders, monks and scholars — not armies.

  • Trade. Indian traders sailing “in search of gold and other valuable resources” took Indian names, stories and gods to Java, Sumatra and Malaya. Malaysia adopted a script based on Brāhmī around the 4th century CE. Harappan traders were exchanging goods with Oman 5,000 years ago.
  • Pilgrimage and teaching. Buddhism reached China “via trade and pilgrimage routes”. Chinese monks Faxian and Xuanzang came to Indian centres of learning; Indian monks Bodhidharma, Dharmakṣhema and Kumārajīva carried teachings to China. Mahendra and Sanghamitrā took Buddhism to Sri Lanka; Guru Padmasambhava took Vajrayāna to Bhutan.
  • Culture. Thai kingdoms chose Indian names for themselves — Dvāravatī, Ayutthayā — and Thai kings still take the name Rāma. Nobody made them do it.

Two more signs of the same peaceful pattern: the traditions were adapted, not copied — Mahāyāna grew new sub-schools such as Zen on its way through China, Japan and Korea, and Thailand blended Hindu ceremony with Theravāda Buddhism. And they survived changes of religion: in Malaysia, Indian influences “remain visible in Malaysian society through art and literature in particular even though by the 15th century Islam became the predominant religion”, and in Indonesia “Islam travelled to Indonesia from the shores of India”.

Why this matters: something taken by force is resented and thrown off at the first chance. Something taken up freely is made your own, and is still there two thousand years later — on a banknote, in a king's name, in a dance. That is why the imprint the chapter describes is still visible today.
Q4.
Today, regional connectivity projects aim to revive these historical links. Besides, Indian films, music, and television often contribute to sustained bonds, in addition to shared strategic and trade interests.
Answer

The old links are being rebuilt in three ways at once — with roads and ports, with popular culture, and with shared interests.

1. Connectivity projects (the routes rebuilt)

  • The India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway, from Manipur through Myanmar into Thailand — “a modern effort to revive and strengthen these age-old connections”.
  • Chabahar Port in Iran, which gives India better access to Afghanistan and Central Asia — the sea end of the old Uttarāpatha.
  • The Zaranj–Delaram highway in Afghanistan, part of Asian Highway 1, as are parts of India's NH 44.
  • The Kartarpur Corridor (2019) and the India–Myanmar Land Border Crossing Agreement of 2018.
  • Hydroelectric projects with Bhutan, such as the Tala project dedicated by the two prime ministers in 2008.

2. Films, music and television (the culture that travels now)

The chapter gives a neat example: in the Maldives, “modern Hindi words like filmu have entered everyday use, thanks to Bollywood”. Popular culture does today what stories and sculpture did in the past — it keeps ordinary people on both sides familiar with each other.

3. Shared strategic and trade interests

India and Indonesia “work closely in regional groups to promote peace, trade, and sustainable development in the Indo-Pacific region”, sharing concerns about “piracy, climate change, and the protection of sea lanes”. Oman is India's closest defence partner in the Gulf and the first country in the region where India holds joint exercises with all three armed forces. India and Malaysia “are also strategic partners, working closely on regional security and maritime stability”.

Why all three are needed: a highway without goodwill is only tarmac, and goodwill without a road cannot deliver anything. The chapter's closing idea is that geography, history and shared interests have to work together — which is exactly what it means by regionalism: “peace, stability, and shared progress”.
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