The extensive amount of commercial traffic has been a distinctive feature of the Indian Ocean trade since at least the early centuries of the Common Era. Networks of trade covering different segments of the Ocean have a history of remarkable resilience without being resistant to innovation. In other words, without disrupting the rhythm of the overall flow, variables such as the share in total trade of different communities of merchants engaged in a given network, the goods carried, and the relative volume of trade carried on at the ports called at, were fully reflective of evolving situations.

Over the centuries, India has played a key role in the successful functioning of these trading networks. In part, this indeed was a function of the midway location of the subcontinent between west Asia on the one hand and Southeast and east Asia on the other. But perhaps even more important was the subcontinent's capacity to put on the market a wide range of tradable goods at highly competitive prices. These included agricultural goods, both food items such as rice as well as raw materials such as cotton and indigo. While the bulk of the trade in these goods was coastal, the high-seas trade component was by no means insignificant.