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 of India|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 within territory of India, as such does not include foreign technologies which India acquired through contact or any Indian origin living in foreign country doing any breakthroughs in foreign land. It also does not include not a new idea, indigenous alternatives, low-cost alternatives, technologies or discoveries developed elsewhere and later invented separately in India, nor inventions by Indian emigres or Indian diaspora in other places. Changes in minor concepts of design or style and artistic innovations do not appear in the lists.
Ancient India
Agriculture Indigo dye – Indigo, a blue pigment and a dye, was used in India, which was also the earliest major, old world, 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. 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 sugar cane, in India, dates to at least the beginning of the common era, with 1st century CE Greek and Roman authors writing on Indian sugar. 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.
Construction, civil engineering and architecture
Stepwell – While the early history of stepwells is poorly understood, water structures in Western India were their likely predecessor. The three features of stepwells in the subcontinent are evident from one particular site, abandoned by 2500 BCE, which combines a bathing pool, steps leading down to water, and figures of some religious importance into one structure. Stupa – The origin of the stupa can be traced to 3rd-century BCE India. It was used as a commemorative monument associated with storing sacred relics. The stupa architecture was adopted in Southeast and East Asia, where it evolved into the pagoda, a Buddhist monument used for enshrining sacred relics. Residential University – Nalanda (Nālandā, pronounced [naːlən̪d̪aː]) was a renowned mahavihara (Buddhist monastic university) in ancient Magadha (modern-day Bihar), eastern India. Considered by historians to be the world's first residential university and among the greatest centres of learning in the ancient world, it was located near the city of Rajagriha (now Rajgir) and about 90 kilometres (56 mi) southeast of Pataliputra (now Patna) and operated from 427 until 1197 CE.
Finance and banking Cheque/Check – There is early evidence of using cheques/checks. In India, during the Maurya Empire (from 321 to 185 BC), a commercial instrument called the "Adesha" was in use, which was an order on a banker desiring him to pay the money of the note to a third person (now known as or referred to as a "Negotiable Instrument").
Games
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