Gilgit was an important city on the Silk Road, along which Buddhism was spread from South Asia to the rest of Asia.^{[citation needed]}

The Dards and Chinas appear in many of the old Pauranic lists of peoples who lived in the region, with the former also mentioned in Ptolemy's accounts of the region. Two famous travellers, Faxian and Xuanzang, traversed Gilgit according to their accounts.^{[citation needed]}