This list of Indian inventions and discoveries details the inventions, scientific discoveries and contributions of India, including those from the historic Indian subcontinent and the modern-day republic of India. It draws from the whole cultural and technological history of India, during which architecture, astronomy, cartography, metallurgy, logic, mathematics, metrology and mineralogy were among the branches of study pursued by its scholars. During recent times science and technology in the Republic of India has also focused on automobile engineering, information technology, communications as well as research into space and polar technology.
For the purpose of this list, the inventions are regarded as technological firsts developed in India, and as such does not include foreign technologies which India acquired through contact. It also does not include technologies or discoveries developed elsewhere and later invented separately in India, nor inventions by Indian emigres in other places. Changes in minor concepts of design or style and artistic innovations do not appear in the lists.
Ancient India
Discoveries
Indigo (dye): Indigo, a blue pigment and a dye, was used in India, which was also the earliest major centre for its production and processing. The Indigofera tinctoria variety of Indigo was domesticated in India. Indigo, used as a dye, made its way to the Greeks and the Romans via various trade routes, and was valued as a luxury product. Jute cultivation: Jute has been cultivated in India since ancient times. Raw jute was exported to the western world, where it was used to make ropes and cordage. The Indian jute industry, in turn, was modernised during the British Raj in India. The region of Bengal was the major centre for Jute cultivation, and remained so before the modernisation of India's jute industry in 1855, when Kolkata became a centre for jute processing in India. Power Series: The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics or the Kerala school was a school of mathematics and astronomy founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama in Tirur, Malappuram, Kerala, India. Their work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided what is now considered the first example of a power series (apart from geometric series). However, they did not formulate a systematic theory of differentiation and integration. Refined sugar: Sugarcane was originally from tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia, with different species originating in India, and S. edule and S. officinarum from New Guinea. The process of producing crystallised sugar from sugarcane was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, and the earliest reference of candied sugar comes from India. The process was soon transmitted to China with travelling Buddhist monks. Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 CE, for obtaining technology for sugar-refining. Each mission returned with results on refining sugar.
Administration
Local government: presence of municipality in Indus Valley Civilization is characterised by rubbish bins and drainage system throughout urban areas. Megasthenes also mentions presence of a local government in the Mauryan city of Pataliputra.
Construction, civil engineering and architecture
English Bond: The English bond is a form of brickwork with alternating stretching and heading courses, with the headers centred over the midpoint of the stretchers, and perpends in each alternate course aligned. Harappan architecture in South Asia was the first to use the so-called English bond in building with bricks.