<P> The transmission of Christianity was primarily known as Nestorianism on the Silk Road . In 781, an inscribed stele shows Nestorian Christian missionaries arriving on the Silk Road . Christianity had spread both east and west, simultaneously bringing Syriac language and evolving the forms of worship . </P> <P> The transmission of Buddhism to China via the Silk Road began in the 1st century CE, according to a semi-legendary account of an ambassador sent to the West by the Chinese Emperor Ming (58--75). During this period Buddhism began to spread throughout Southeast, East, and Central Asia . Mahayana, Theravada, and Tibetan Buddhism are the three primary forms of Buddhism that spread across Asia via the Silk Road . </P> <P> The Buddhist movement was the first large - scale missionary movement in the history of world religions . Chinese missionaries were able to assimilate Buddhism, to an extent, to native Chinese Daoists, which brought the two beliefs together . Buddha's community of followers, the Sangha, consisted of male and female monks and laity . These people moved through India and beyond to spread the ideas of Buddha . As the number of members within the Sangha increased, it became costly so that only the larger cities were able to afford having the Buddha and his disciples visit . It is believed that under the control of the Kushans, Buddhism was spread to China and other parts of Asia from the middle of the first century to the middle of the third century . Extensive contacts started in the 2nd century, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Kushan empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin, due to the missionary efforts of a great number of Buddhist monks to Chinese lands . The first missionaries and translators of Buddhists scriptures into Chinese were either Parthian, Kushan, Sogdian, or Kuchean . </P> <P> One result of the spread of Buddhism along the Silk Road was displacement and conflict . The Greek Seleucids were exiled to Iran and Central Asia because of a new Iranian dynasty called the Parthians at the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, and as a result the Parthians became the new middle men for trade in a period when the Romans were major customers for silk . Parthian scholars were involved in one of the first ever Buddhist text translations into the Chinese language . Its main trade centre on the Silk Road, the city of Merv, in due course and with the coming of age of Buddhism in China, became a major Buddhist centre by the middle of the 2nd century . Knowledge among people on the silk roads also increased when Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya dynasty (268--239 BCE) converted to Buddhism and raised the religion to official status in his northern Indian empire . </P>

Where did the silk route start and end