Markets, such as the flower market in Kolkata, have enticed traders to India for millennia. By the 1st century BCE, a series of sea and land routes throughout India supported trade among regions of the subcontinent and with the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia. Rome's conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE consolidated a maritime route to India that remained active into the 7th century. Pepper, spices, and textiles were the primary items traded with the West in exchange for wine, olive oil, and Roman coins.
From roughly 200 BCE to 1500 CE, eastern and western traders traveled through northern India along a network of land routes that linked Rome in the west and Chang'an (today's Xian), China in the east. Ideas, culture, and religion were exchanged along with goods, and the route is credited with the spread of Buddhism from India to China.
Trade flourished under the Kushan Empire (1st century CE – 3rd century CE) and the Gupta Empire (5th and 6th centuries CE) as rulers acquired more lands and access to important maritime ports in northwest India. By the end of the 10th century, the Cholan Empire controlled trade along both eastern and western coasts in the south and would extend their empire to Sri Lanka and the Maldive Islands.
The arrival of Vasco da Gama from Portugal in 1498 established a sea route from Europe to India. Among the rival trading companies that did business along this route, the British East India Company eventually gained a monopoly on trade with India, and eventually took over governance of the region until the second half of the 19th century.

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Timelines and other features can be found at
https://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/