Science & technology in ancient India and its relevance today

The scientific and technological past of ancient India is not just a chapter of history, but a guide for the present and future. It showcases a wide spectrum of human genius — from mathematical abstraction to precise surgery and excellent metallurgy. Indian education systems now need to include this heritage in the core curriculum

Long before “engineering” became a formal discipline, India was practising it. Between roughly 3300 and 1300 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization built meticulously planned cities, covered drainage systems, and refined metalwork. The Vedic period added agriculture, further metallurgy, and systematic sky-watching — the base for a scholarly line running from the Rigveda to Aryabhata, Sushruta, Charaka, Varahamihira, and Bhaskaracharya.

Centres of learning such as Nalanda, Vikramshila, and Takshashila brought philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine together under one roof. Aryabhata’s Aryabhatiya (c. 499 CE) worked out trigonometric formulas, argued that the Earth itself moves, and calculated its circumference at 39,968 kilometres. Bhaskaracharya’s Lilavati laid early groundwork for algebra, and Brahmagupta set out the rules for negative numbers. The Sushruta Samhita is the earliest known text on detailed surgery, including plastic and cataract techniques, while the Charaka Samhita reads like an encyclopaedia of internal medicine. Nagarjuna’s Rasashastra covered medicinal preparation, the Surya Siddhanta calculated eclipses and planetary motion, and Varahamihira’s Panchasiddhantika merged five astronomical traditions into one. The rust-free Iron Pillar of Delhi (c. 400 CE) still puzzles metallurgists, and Vastu Shastra drew its architectural principles from the sun’s movement, wind, and a balance of five elements. We live amid artificial intelligence, generative tools, private spaceflight, AR/VR, 5G, drones, humanoid robots, and 3D printing — alongside deepening environmental crises, rising mental health difficulties, and ethics that haven’t kept pace with the technology. That gap is worth naming — and worth asking what earlier Indian thought, built around balance rather than pure output, might still offer.

 Ayurveda and the Practice of Staying Well

Ayurveda, India’s traditional medical system, treats mind and body as one connected whole. Its purpose is captured in a well-known line: “Swasthasya swasthya rakshanam, aturasya vikar prashamanam cha” — protect the health of the well, and cure the disease of the sick. That aim hasn’t aged. Ayurvedic learning follows daily and seasonal rhythm. Dinacharya prescribes waking before dawn, exercise, bathing, and reflection. Rtucharya divides the year into six seasons — Shishir, Vasant, Grishma, Varsha, Sharad, and Hemant — each calling for dosha adjustments; summer’s rising Pitta and Vata, for instance, call for cooling foods and plenty of water. Diet follows six tastes — sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent — eaten according to one’s digestive strength, since, per the Charaka Samhita, weak digestion is the root of nearly every illness (“Roga sarve mandagnau”). Mentally, Ayurveda describes temperament through three gunas — Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.

The stakes are real: diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and heart disease are now widespread enough to strain health systems worldwide — only one country has more adults with diabetes than India. Ayurveda’s answer — dosha balance through Dinacharya, Rtucharya, and the Trayopastambha, or three pillars of health — speaks directly to this. Recognition extends well beyond India: the WHO estimates 80–90 percent of people worldwide use traditional medicine and now treats such systems as essential healthcare, reflected in its choice to host the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India. AIIMS Rishikesh has run a Tridosha-based AYUSH department alongside conventional treatment since 2017, the same year the All India Institute of Ayurveda in New Delhi became fully operational; the National Institute of Ayurveda continues expanding research and training.

Children today carry real strain from exam pressure and constant social media exposure. Patanjali answered this centuries ago: his second yoga sutra, “Yogashchitta vritti nirodhah,” defines yoga as the stilling of the mind’s fluctuations — peace through mastering restlessness, not eliminating its causes. The National Education Policy 2020 makes a related point, insisting self-understanding deserves as much attention as academic content.

India’s older texts — the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Ayurveda — treat mental health as one part of a wider picture spanning body and spirit. The Atharvaveda’s descriptions of mantras and healing sound anticipate what’s now marketed as sound therapy and mindfulness. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras set out an eight-limbed path — Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi — for developing body, mind, and spirit together. Practised regularly, it builds flexibility, strength, and immunity, supports digestion and breathing, eases stress and anxiety, sharpens concentration and memory, and nurtures self-knowledge, a steadier outlook, and empathy.

Global recognition is hard to overstate: when the UN marked the first International Yoga Day on June 21, 2015, 177 countries backed it. India has since made yoga compulsory in schools, and institutions as prominent as Harvard and Stanford now research its effects. A similar pattern holds for the environment. Despite real scientific progress, climate change and lifestyle disease keep worsening, partly because students rarely learn to treat environmental care as central rather than optional. Older Indian thought treated nature as alive and conscious. The Atharvaveda’s line “Mata Bhumih Putroham Prithivyah” — the Earth is our mother, we are her children — framed protecting the planet as a spiritual duty. Forests were designated Aranyak or Tapovan and protected; trees like the peepal and neem were revered as Devavriksha; water systems relied on rainwater harvesting, now being revived out of necessity; and the Panchatantra and Hitopadesha taught compassion toward animals through childhood fables.

Agriculture followed the same logic — mixed cropping and organic manure — long before synthetic fertilisers and pesticides brought side effects now well documented, alongside worsening air, water, and land pollution. Bringing Vedic, Puranic, and folk ecological traditions back into education could address this at the root. India’s space programme shows the heritage still has momentum: Mangalyaan (2014) and the Chandrayaan missions, through Chandrayaan-3 (2023), extend rather than break from a much older tradition of Indian mathematics and astronomy. Teaching traditional models — the classical twelve zodiac signs, say — alongside Kepler’s laws could sharpen students’ mathematical-astronomical thinking. The National Education Policy 2020 calls for weaving India’s Vedic and classical scientific heritage into STEM education, restoring continuity while encouraging both indigenous pride and global engagement. Vastu Shastra is a disciplined study of how buildings relate to their surroundings — oriented around the sun’s path, wind, the Earth’s magnetic field, and a balance of five elements to secure natural light, airflow, and energy efficiency, much of it mapping onto what’s now called green building design: passive cooling, natural lighting, rainwater harvesting, and solar power.

The overlap goes beyond concept. LEED-certified buildings following Vastu’s preferred northeast-facing layout — the Ishan corner — have cut energy use by up to 30 percent in some studies. Researchers at IIT Kharagpur found that Vastu-style courtyards, built around natural daylight and cross-ventilation, use roughly 40 percent less energy than typical passive-cooling designs, while local materials also cut the carbon footprint. The National Education Policy 2020 supports bringing Vastu into architecture curricula; pairing temple and haveli case studies with green-certification training and solar-analysis software could help students apply this heritage to climate-resilient design.

Ancient India’s scientific and technical achievements — spanning mathematical abstraction, surgical precision, and metallurgical skill still not fully explained — deserve a real place in the core curriculum, not as nostalgia but as proof that science has always been a shared human project Indian scholars helped shape.

The aim is not blind imitation of the past or glorification of unscientific claims, but to provide education rooted in cultural foundations with a global perspective. This will help children understand that science is a universal human endeavor in which their ancestors also made significant contributions. It will encourage them to adopt a multidisciplinary, comprehensive, and sustainable approach.

The National Education Policy 2020 calls for weaving India’s Vedic and classical scientific heritage into STEM education, restoring continuity while encouraging both indigenous pride and global engagement.

The author is a renowned educationist and currently the Vice-Chancellor of Ranchi University; Views presented are personal.