The Romans carried on a thriving trade with India. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD), "the principal imports [from India] to Rome were perfumes, spices (especially pepper), gems, ivory, pearls, Indian textiles, and Chinese silk. The Romans exported linen, coral, glass, base metals, 'Arretine' tableware, wine in amphorae, etc., and also sent large quantities of gold and silver (and later copper) coins, of which large hoards have been found in south Indian and the eastern Deccan as well as some clay bullae ('amulets') of Roman coins."
This trade made the empire rich, but it also caused serious problems. The Romans were mostly importing luxury items from India -- items which would have sold almost exclusively to the upper classes who could afford them -- and the importers were paying hard cash for a lot of this merchandise. Back in the days of real money, this would have led to currency shortages. Payments in coin would have caused a significant outflow of money from the Roman economy and Roman emperors such as Augustus made periodic attempts to discourage excessive luxury spending by the aristocracy. Getting the nobility to curb their spending was difficult to do, however, because such spending was a sign of status among the Roman elites.
The coin shortages produced by the Roman aristocracy's taste for luxury goods from the East are a classic example of the problems a state can run into when it uses precious metals for its money. Gold and silver coins can't be created out of nothing like a fiat currency. There's always a limited supply of these coins in circulation and the India trade removed a lot of money from the Roman economy. Some of these coins must have trickled back in one form or another through the complex network of trade that was carried on back then, but the problem was serious enough for Augustus to try to put the brakes on luxury spending in Rome. Managing the Roman economy was a tricky business. The stability of the system depended in large part on the discovery of new mines and the competence of the empire's administrators:
"The monetary system of the Roman Empire always operated on very narrow margins. It is possible to calculate that in normal times perhaps 80 percent of the imperial budget was covered by tax revenues, the rest by the topping up of what came in with coins minted from newly mined metal. Prudent emperors managed; the less prudent did not." -- Oxford Classical Dictionary.
Note:The Roman trade with India began to decline after around 200 AD when "communications with India passed into the hands of intermediaries (Arabians, Axumites [1], Sasanid Persians), and India again became a land of fable to the Mediterranean world." (OCD)
[1] "The Kingdom of Aksum, also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was an ancient kingdom centered in what is now Eritrea and the Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia." (Wikipedia) The strategically important Aksum was heavily involved in the ivory trade and controlled both banks of the Red Sea near its outlet into the Indian Ocean. All the sea traffic between Rome and India would have had to pass through the kingdom's zone of influence.