10 Greatest & Unpopular Indian Inventions | Keerthi History

• The history in school books often overlooks significant contributions from India.
• India has a rich legacy of inventions and discoveries that impacted global civilization.
• Ten remarkable contributions from India include diamonds, buttons, and the concept of zero.
• Understanding these contributions helps appreciate India's historical influence on the world.
• It’s time to recognize and celebrate India's advancements and innovations.

When it comes to history, I don't really think our school books do enough justice about it. Everyone knows about the Isaac Newton and the Apple story. But how many of us know about the stories of Raman Nujan and CV Rahman?

Let me ask you a question. Name three great inventions that changed the course of the world. Now when I said invention, most of us would have automatically thought about an English name, a French idea, or simply a name from the West. But do we have any idea that India has a rich history of discoveries and inventions?

Many of these have a significant impact on our day-to-day life. So today, I am gonna tell you the 10 things that were discovered in India that changed the history of the world.

Number one - Diamonds.
Today, the majestic diamonds of India are once again in the hotspot thanks to the Ambanis. But India has always been known for diamonds since ancient times. Did you know India was the only source of diamond in the entire world until the 18th century? That was just 300 years ago!

India is the first country in the world where diamonds were found and traded. It’s estimated that India was trading diamonds as early as the 4th century BCE, which is a minimum of 2,400 years ago. There’s a saying, but I am not sure how true it is: when India was in its golden period, diamonds were sold on the streets like vegetables.

In the early 1700s, diamonds were found in Brazil and in the late 1800s, they were found in African countries. Then the whole diamond market shifted to the African continent. So we can literally say any diamond in the world right now that is older than 400 years is of Indian origin.

Number two - Buttons.
Yes, you heard it right! The buttons we use in our clothing daily were invented by Indians. What you see in the picture is the earliest known buttons in the history of mankind. These buttons, with some symbols on them, were made out of curved sea shells and were excavated from the Indus Valley civilization, and they are approximately 5,000 years old.

Even though these buttons have tiny holes on them, they were primarily used as ornaments. But later, people eventually started using them to fasten their clothes. The discovery of buttons may sound not so important, but imagine the part it has in the fashion industry today. The global fashion industry is estimated to be worth $1.7 trillion today.

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Now moving forward.

Number three - Proper Toilet and Drainage System.
You know, I used to get really mad that the drainage system of the Indus Valley civilization is being highlighted way too much while other things, like yoga and metallurgy, are not being talked about enough. Because I thought the toilet and the drainage system were like the basics until I got to know how bad it was in the rest of the world.

This is the toilet from Europe in the Medieval period. The Medieval period means approximately 500-2000 years ago. This type of toilet, called a Cloakroom, was usually located at the top floor of the castle. The people living in the castle would do their business there, and some poor guy would clean their mess below. Reportedly, there was no water involved.

In ancient Rome, it was a little better. Toilets were built like community places, where men sat together and did their business while water ran below to clear the waste. Now, what's disgusting is they used a sponge attached to a stick to wipe their backs after defecation. It was not a personal property but a public one. A person after using the sponge would dunk it in a bucket of water or vinegar to clean it off for the next person to use it.

Now let's see the toilet and the drainage system of the Indus Valley civilization. The toilet holes would be flushed by pouring a bucket of water, with the waste flowing through a terracotta pipe into a cesspit, which is literally what we call a septic tank today. From time to time, these cesspits would be emptied, and the waste would be used as fertilizer.

The time we’re talking about was 5,000 years back. Now about the drainage system: many of the buildings at Mohenjo-Daro had two or more stories, and the water they used again flowed through terracotta pipes and ended up in the street drains—just like what we do today! Thus, the concept of modern toilets and drainage systems was first discovered in India.

Number four - Sugar.
One in six people in the world with diabetes is from India. That is 17% of the world’s population. More than 100 million people in India are diabetic, which is 11.4% of the country’s total population, so rightfully we have to claim this one.

Originally, sugarcane was consumed raw, similar to how people chew sugarcane to extract the sweetness. But you can't preserve it for a long time, so there was a need. Some accounts say that it was during the Gupta period that Indians learned how to crystallize sugar using sugarcane juice. However, ancient Indian literature like the Agricultural text mentions that refined sugar was already being produced in India.

Even the word sugar is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word "sakkara", which means candy sugar. So sugar, which literally changed the food habits of the entire human race, was invented in India.

Number five - Steel and Metalworks.
Oh my God! This is the most underrated one. Ancient Indians were literally the GOATs (Greatest Of All Time) in metallurgy. Have you been to Gudhura Naga? There’s a 1,600-year-old pillar from Chandragupta II’s period that has been standing there, open to the sun and rain for 600 years, and it has not rusted yet.

Now imagine how advanced Indians must have been in metallurgy for over 7,000 years! India has had a high tradition of metallurgical skills. We can back it up with two sources: archaeological excavations and literary evidence. The first evidence of metal in the Indian subcontinent comes from Balochistan, where a small copper artifact dated back to 6000 BCE was found. By the third millennium BC, the Dravidian people had mastered the art of metal casting.

They melted metals like gold, silver, lead, copper, and bronze, making a variety of objects and ornaments. In an excavation in 1962 near Udayur in Agawali hills, some copper pots, quarries, and glass-like materials were found, which dated back to 800-2600 BCE. These glass-like materials were actually the waste products from the copper melting industry.

So, this suggests there was a systematic copper melting industry there some 3,500 years back. Not to mention, the first-ever form of steel, known as wood steel, was invented in India. It's not exactly clear when it was invented, but the earliest mention of this was found during Alexander’s invasion of India, which claimed that Alexander was gifted 200 half tons of wood steel by Porus.

Number six - Rulers or Scales.
Honestly, not many of us know about these scales or rulers. They were first used by the people of the Indus Valley civilization. Multiple measuring instruments were found at Mohenjo-Daro, and among them were scales made of ivory marked to approximately 1.6 mm all over the region.

All bricks were made of one size. The ratio of the length, breadth, and thickness of the bricks was 4:2:1. The same-sized bricks were used for construction all over the region.

Number seven - Cotton.
India and its weaving history is a never-ending story. According to the latest archaeological evidence, cotton was probably first grown at Mehalgirl, which is currently in Pakistan, about 7,000 years ago. So far, this is the earliest known instance of cotton cultivation.

The Indus Valley civilization started cultivating cotton around 5,000 years back. Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, mentions Indian cotton from the 5th century BCE, which is 7000 years ago. At that time, Greece was still unaware of cotton!

Number eight - The Concept of University.
Imparting education has always been an integral part of India. The Gurukula system exists only God knows since when. But the concept of the university also belongs to India. The first-ever university in the world, Nalanda, was established in the 5th century and is approximately 20,500 years old.

It had 300 lecture halls, a library, and a tower for astro-research. Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang recorded in his diary that it had more than 10,000 students and 200 professors, including the great Aryabhata and Chanakya. Students from as far as Babylonia, Greece, Arabia, and China studied there, and the university offered 60 different courses in various subjects like science, mathematics, medicine, politics, astronomy, music, religion, warfare, and many more.

Number nine - Zero.
This one we all know. Zero might mean nothing, but the world of mathematics has nothing without it. The modern life we are living today, with its technological advancements, would not be possible without the discovery of zero.

The invention of zero made calculations much easier, helping mathematicians to create fields like algebra and calculus, which eventually led to the development of computers. In the 15th century BC, Greek philosopher Parmenides claimed that nothing cannot exist. If we have to speak of something, we can only speak of something that already exists.

After the birth of Christianity, religious leaders argued that since God is everything that exists, anything that represents nothing must be satanic, and they kind of banned the use of zero at all. But still, people used it in secret. Here in India, the whole concept of Hinduism and Buddhism surrounds the idea of nothingness. So naturally, zero was born in India.

Number ten - Yoga.
The whole world knows that the art of yoga was first discovered in India. Yoga is an integral part of Indian culture. Even the smallest gestures we make on a daily basis, like namaste or sitting cross-legged, are forms of yoga.

But one thing we fail to recognize is how advanced the science of yoga is. In 1985, Harvard scholar Herbert Benson and his team visited a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas. They found that the monks practiced a form of yoga to control their body temperatures.

The team filmed the monks using their own bodies to dry wet clothes when the outside temperature was like -20 degrees Celsius. The monks slept on the rocks peacefully when the temperature was the same, dressed in light shawls. Even today, we have videos of yogis meditating almost naked in the freezing Himalayas.

How do they do it? We have the Pashupati seal, a Mahayogi seal from the Indus Valley civilization, where a man is sitting in a yogic pose, completely surrounded by wild animals but still undisturbed. We can clearly say the people of the Indus Valley civilization were not beginners exploring or experimenting with yoga but had already mastered the art of yoga.

Hence, yoga must have originated even earlier than the Indus Valley civilization period. Even the contemporaneous cultures like Mesopotamian and Persian do not have representations of yogic poses.

Here we are not trying to discover whether yoga was originated in India or not. That’s not even the debate. My pointers want you to understand how advanced the people of India were back in that time compared to the rest of the world. We have so many studies and research on the benefits of yoga and its magical powers.

But imagine back in that time, the people mastered this art when the rest of the world was living in caves. India has always been a step ahead of the world.

I agree that we had a bad phase in history. We went through a lot of tough times. But I think it’s time for us to bounce back. I guess we are doing it already.