Science and Technology in Mughal India

Science and Technology in Mughal India

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• The study of Science and Technology in Mughal India reveals a complex picture of selective innovation, syncretic borrowing, and eventual stagnation relative to Europe.
• While the Delhi Sultanate had already fostered a productive interaction between Islamic (Arab) science and indigenous Indian knowledge, the Mughal period deepened this exchange — combining Persian, indigenous Indian, and, later, European influences across fields ranging from astronomy and metallurgy to medicine and shipbuilding.
• Yet, as this article shows, India’s inability to institutionalise a sphere of rationality independent of religion and tradition — in contrast to post-15th-century Europe — became a critical inhibiting factor, with long-term consequences for the subcontinent’s technological trajectory.

Background: Science Under the Sultanate

• After the coming of the Turks, there was greater interaction between Islamic (Arab) science and India.
  • Many new technologies were introduced, including paper, the spinning wheel, the carder’s bow, an improved water wheel (rahat), and the widespread use of the iron stirrup.
  • In the sciences, interaction was concentrated mainly in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, though agricultural and animal sciences were not entirely neglected.
• Notable Sultanate patrons of learning:
  • Jalal al-Din Khilji (d. 1296) was the first Muslim Sultan of Delhi to display genuine intellectual curiosity toward Hindu learning and Sanskrit studies.
  • Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1351) was a great scholar, versed in logic, Greek philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physical sciences, with knowledge of medicine, skill in dialectics, and expertise as a calligrapher; he also enjoyed the company of Hindu yogis and patronised Jain divines.
  • The Sultans of Delhi took keen interest in mechanical machines such as pulleys and piers; the work Sirat Feroz Shahi (1370) lists 13 such instruments used for transporting stones and heavy building materials.
  • Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1388) established hospitals for the free treatment of the poor, encouraged physicians in developing Unani medicine, commissioned translations of Sanskrit medical works, and ordered a work on Hindu astronomy and astrology to be translated into Persian as the Dalaile Firoz Shahi.
• The broader Islamic-world context:
  • From the eleventh century onward, the Islamic world had witnessed a sustained assault on reason and science, conducted in the name of philosophy.
    • Al-Ghazali (1111), regarded as a great teacher, played an important part in this assault on reason.
  • As a result, science became virtually submerged under religion, mysticism, and aesthetics — though this fusion of science, religion, magic, and myth was not unique to Islam and appears across many religious traditions.
  • Works produced in this period, including in India, did extend into newer areas such as geography, optics and specific gravity within physics, magnetism, and concepts of motion and time, though they remain understudied and yet to be fully evaluated.
  • A sphere of rationality, however, was a necessary precondition for the sustained growth of science. In Europe, science advanced from the 15th century onward precisely by carving out such a rationalist sphere independent of religion.
  • India’s — and the wider Islamic world’s — inability to delink science from religion or mysticism became a significant inhibiting factor in scientific progress.

Science and Technology Under the Mughals

• The study of Mughal science and technology can be divided into two broad strands:
  • Indigenous development.
  • Indian response to European science and technology.

Indigenous Development

• In science: There was no noteworthy indigenous contribution by Indians during this period.
• In technology: Some genuine inventions and new methods did emerge, particularly in the military sector.
  • In the chemical sector, innovations included rose-scent (itr) and the use of saltpetre for water-cooling.

Indian Response to European Science and Technology

• The Indian response to European science and technology was not uniform, ranging across positive, negative, and indifferent reactions.
  • For instance, in shipbuilding, there were several positive responses, but this was not the case with glass technology.
  • As for science proper, Indians do not appear to have meaningfully profited from exposure to European scientific developments.

Science

• There was no breakthrough in physics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, geography, or mathematics during this period.
• The French traveller Careri observed of Muslim scholars in India: “As for sciences they can make no progress in them for want of Books; for they have none but some small manuscript works of Aristotle and Avicenna in Arabic.”
• Despite this, some learned and able scientists did exist:
  • Mir Fathullah Shirazi, who joined Akbar’s court at Agra in 1583 (d. 1588), was among the most notable.
    • His major contributions included inventing several mechanical devices and introducing a “true” solar calendar, known as the Ilahi calendar, at Akbar’s order.
    • He did not, however, propound any new scientific theory or formula distinct from those already traditional in India.
• Limited exposure to European learning:
  • Abu’l-Fazl was aware of the European discovery of America and expressed appreciation for European painting, though this knowledge does not appear to have become a standard part of geography teaching in India.
  • The governor of Junnar interrogated the traveller Fryer in 1670 on “the state of Europe, the government, policy and learning.”
  • Danishmand Khan took a personal interest in the philosophy of Descartes, as well as scientific subjects such as astronomy, geography, and anatomy.
    • The French physician Bernier was patronised by the Mughal noble Agha Danishmand Khan in the second half of the 17th century, to whom he explained the new discoveries of Harvey and Pecquet concerning the circulation of the blood.
    • Bernier held a very poor opinion of Indian knowledge of anatomy; Indian hakims and vaids showed no real interest in Harvey’s discovery.
  • These contacts, however, did not spread widely or induce a more systematic study of Western science.
  • Galileo’s discovery — that the Earth revolves around the Sun, in contrast to the Ptolemaic worldview — did not reach Indian scientists.
  • Newton’s three Laws of Motion, as well as his Law of Gravity, remained unknown in India at this time.
  • As Bernier lamented, India had no academies — apart from madrasas for religious study — where such subjects could be systematically pursued. Interest in Western science and philosophy therefore remained individual, and died with the individual.

Agricultural Technology

• There was no radical change in the plough, iron ploughshare, irrigational devices, or methods of sowing, harvesting, threshing, and winnowing.
• Dibbling — a method of sowing:
  • There is evidence of broadcasting, the seed-drill, and dibbling (used particularly for cotton cultivation).
  • In dibbling, a hole was made in the ground, the seed placed inside, and then covered with earth.
• Introduction of new crops, plants, and fruits:
  • Many were brought by Europeans, especially the Portuguese.
    • Tobacco, pineapple, cashew-nuts, and potato — important crops brought from the Americas.
    • Tomato, guava, and red chillies were also introduced from outside India.
    • Maize does not appear in Abu’l-Fazl’s Ain-i-Akbari, suggesting it was introduced later by Europeans from Latin America.
    • Tobacco eventually led to the practice of huqqa-smoking.
  • The Mughal elite had begun growing Central Asian fruits — such as melons and grapes near Agra — from the time of Babur; cherries were introduced in Kashmir during Akbar’s reign.
  • Fruits of better quality were grown through seed propagation.
  • Grafting techniques:
    • Became prevalent in India only after 1550 AD.
    • Mangoes of the finest quality were produced exclusively in Goa through grafting by the Portuguese.
    • The resulting “Alfonso” mango received glowing tributes from several European travellers to India.

Waterworks

• The first Mughal Emperor, Babur, is known to have patronised the construction of water channels for gardens and orchards, as well as ablution pools for his servicemen.
• This tradition was continued by his grandson Akbar, who built monumental waterworks at his capital, Fatehpur Sikri.
  • He ordered the construction of a dam with 13 gates, which created a shallow artificial lake each monsoon season.
  • Water was then lifted into Fatehpur Sikri using large mechanical devices — the Persian water wheel and sakias.
  • Akbar’s engineers brought water into the city in stages, after which gravity carried it through a complex system of channels, pools, and reservoirs.
  • However, due to a water shortfall and brief drought, Fatehpur Sikri was eventually abandoned, forcing Akbar to relocate his capital to Lahore.
• Building on the success of these systems, Emperor Shah Jahan patronised the digging of wells and construction of river embankments for irrigation.
  • Shah Jahan was the only Mughal emperor to have two canals dug, drawing water from the Yamuna to irrigate fertile lands: the Nahr-i-Faiz and the Shah Nahr.
  • During his reign, Agra came to be known as the “waterfront garden city,” supporting the wealth of its 700,000 inhabitants.
• Mughal emperors were, in general, famed for their endowments to irrigation construction, aimed at expanding cultivated, irrigated land, raising crop yields, and increasing the empire’s net revenue base.

Textile Technology

• There was no radical addition or improvement to Indian textile technology under the Mughals, but two major developments did occur:
  • Carpet-weaving, patronised by Akbar at Lahore, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri.
  • Large-scale production of silk and silk fabrics.
• Europeans did not bring their own textile techniques to India during the first half of the 17th century; Italian silk filatures were introduced only in the 1770s.
• In weaving and dyeing, Indian technology was hardly backward compared to what was then available in Europe.
  • Europeans complained of the width of the cloth produced, though this could be easily rectified.
  • For certain colours and dyes, Europeans sent their own craftsmen to Murshidabad.
• Although block printing on textiles had been developed in India — and was also used in China for printing on paper — this technique was never adopted for printing on paper in India.
  • Whether this was because scribes could still work more cheaply (suggesting a wider diffusion of literacy than commonly assumed) or due to other factors, it certainly limited the dissemination of knowledge.

Military Technology

• Guns and pistols:
  • The matchlock technique for firing a gun remained in use largely until Aurangzeb’s reign; Mughal paintings regularly depict matchlocks.
  • Abu’l-Fazl claims that flint-lock handguns (dispensing with the matchcord) were manufactured in Akbar’s arsenal, though only on a limited scale, probably for Akbar’s personal use.
  • Europe, by contrast, was familiar with both the wheel-lock and flint-lock mechanisms; Europeans gifted pistols to Indians, but Indians never learned the art of the wheel-lock.
• Swords:
  • Indians preferred curved swords, in contrast to the straight, double-edged rapiers of Europe.
  • Akbar built large foundries producing sword blades of the finest quality, and is known to have personally preferred Damascus steel talwars — considered the sharpest blades used in battle in South Asia.
• Akbar’s mechanical inventions (per Abu’l-Fazl):
  • A wheel for cleaning gun-barrels: “Akbar invented a wheel, by the motion of which sixteen barrels may be cleaned in a very short time. The wheel is turned by a bullock.”
  • A mechanism joining seventeen guns, enabling them to be fired simultaneously with a single matchcord.
• Fathullah Shirazi (d. 1582), a Persian polymath and mechanical engineer who worked for Akbar:
  • Developed a volley gun with multiple barrels, similar to hand cannons, designed as an infantry-killing weapon.
  • Invented a machine capable of cleaning sixteen gun barrels simultaneously, operated by a cow (also attributed to Akbar).
  • Also developed a 17-barrelled cannon, fired with a matchlock (also attributed to Akbar).
• Cannon foundries:
  • Cannons were manufactured in India for Indian rulers.
  • Under Shah Jahan, Jaigarh Fort became one of the world’s most efficient cannon foundries, owing to the abundance of nearby iron ore mines.
    • The foundry had a massive wind-tunnel that drew air from the surrounding mountains into its furnace, generating temperatures as high as 2400°F, sufficient to melt the metal.
    • Most Mughal cannons were massive — typically 16 feet long — and had to be completed within a single day.
    • The Mughals also built a large, ingenious mechanical device with a precision gear system, driven by four pairs of oxen, used for hollowing out cannon barrels.
  • Mughal cannon production reached its zenith under Emperor Aurangzeb; one of the most impressive examples is the Zafar Baksh, a rare composite cannon requiring skills in both wrought-iron forge-welding and bronze-casting.
• Rockets:
  • Akbar was the first to initiate and use metal cylinder rockets against war elephants, during the Battle of Sambhal.
  • In 1657, the Mughal army used rockets during the Siege of Bidar; Prince Aurangzeb’s forces discharged rockets and grenades while scaling enemy walls.
  • The later Mysorean rockets were upgraded versions of these Mughal rockets, used during the Siege of Jinji by the descendants of the Nawab of Arcot.
    • Hyder Ali recognised the significance of rockets and introduced advanced metal cylinder rockets, which helped turn the tide in favour of the Sultanate of Mysore during the Second Anglo-Mysore War.
    • Rockets were made using gunpowder, with some travelling through the air and others along the surface.
  • Tipu Sultan (d. 1799) and his father Hyder Ali (d. 1782) are regarded as pioneers of solid-fuel rocket (missile) technology for military use, developing the tactic of mass rocket-brigade attacks on infantry formations.
    • Tipu Sultan’s military manual, Fathul Mujahidin, records that 200 rocket men were assigned to each Mysorean “cushoon” (brigade); Mysore maintained 16 to 24 cushoons of infantry.
    • The area of town devoted to manufacturing rockets and fireworks was known as Taramandal Pet (“Galaxy Market”).
    • This rocket technology reached Europe only after Tipu’s death.
    • Rocket men were trained to launch rockets at an angle calculated from the cylinder’s diameter and the target’s distance; wheeled rocket launchers, capable of firing five to ten rockets almost simultaneously, were also used in war.
• Despite such genuine inventiveness — the gun-barrel cleaning device, the corn-grinding carriage developed under Akbar, and others — these innovations did not spread widely, largely because the ruling class showed little interest in devices that affected the labouring classes.

Shipbuilding

• In medieval times, the entire vessel was constructed of wood.
  • Rabbeting was widely practised in India to join the planks.
  • Planks were then smeared with indigenous pitch or tar, and lime, serving the double purpose of sealing fissures and preserving the timber from sea worms.
• Indians did not adopt the European method of caulking, since:
  • It offered no technical superiority over the indigenous method.
  • It was more expensive.
• India did, however, adopt iron nails and clamps from the Europeans.
  • Abu’l-Fazl records that 468 mans of iron were used for one of Akbar’s ships; Mughal paintings confirm the presence of iron nails, strips, and clamps in vessel construction.
• Iron anchors were similarly adopted from Europeans during the 17th century, replacing the earlier use of large stones.
• Earlier, buckets were used to bail leaked water from ships; the European iron chain-pump began to be used in India, though it was not widely adopted, since these pumps were not manufactured domestically and had to be purchased or borrowed from Europeans.
• As early as 1612, ships built at Dabul were reported to have been made “Christian-like, with topps and all their tackings (sails) accordingly.”
• The contemporary observer Bowrey believed the master carpenters of the Krishna-Godavari delta on the Coromandel coast could construct and launch ships as skilfully as any European shipwright, many having learned European construction techniques directly from European craftsmen.
  • Surat was another important centre for such shipbuilding.
• By the end of the 17th century, “European country-traders made little technical distinction between ships built in the west and those built in the countries of the Indian Ocean.”
• Alongside improvements in ship design, hulls were strengthened to absorb the shock of artillery fire, and Indian merchantmen began carrying guns and armed men for defence.
  • The Ganj-i-Sawai, Aurangzeb’s largest ship, was armed with 80 cannons and 400 muskets.
  • However, these cannons proved largely useless against European ships, owing to faulty gun placement, unskilled Indian marksmanship, and poor navigational skills — the Ganj-i-Sawai ultimately fell to an English ship without any real combat.
• This overall pattern reveals the considerable capacity of Indian craftsmen to copy and reproduce models indistinguishable from European originals, even using primitive tools — as with a horse-carriage built on the English model for Jahangir. Such models, however, were often not disseminated or improved upon further.

Metallurgy

• Main features of Indian metallurgical practice:
  • Fuel for smelting was wood charcoal, since coal was not known.
  • Smelters used small furnaces, with ribless, small bellows that could not generate an efficient air-blast or sufficiently high temperatures.
  • Since iron and bronze were melted in numerous small, diverse furnaces, the quality of molten metal varied, and the resulting fabricated objects were often not of high quality.
• Abu’l-Fazl describes the technique for making iron cannons and handgun barrels at Akbar’s arsenal — possibly a newly invented process; cannons were made variously of bronze, brass, and iron.
• “Wootz” iron had been produced in India since 400 BC, and was exported to sword-making centres such as Damascus in Syria.
  • Various types of weapons were manufactured in India using such metals.
• Notably, zinc — unknown in Europe at the time — was successfully extracted in India.
  • Numerous alloys, including iron, steel, brass, and bronze, were produced for weapon-making in workshops called karkhanas; descriptions of cannon-casting are recorded in the Baburnama.
• Screw cannons: To carry heavy cannons up hilltops, they were cast in pieces and assembled subsequently; multi-barrelled cannons were also made, capable of firing 17 barrels in succession.
• Other metallurgical applications:
  • Copper surfaces were coated with a mixture of zinc and tin.
  • Threads made from metals such as gold and silver were used in textiles.
  • Gold and silver leaf were produced for use in goods and medicines.
  • Another dimension of metallurgy was the production of gold, silver, and copper coins.
• The seamless globe: Considered one of the most remarkable feats in metallurgy, the seamless celestial globe was invented in Kashmir by Ali Kashmiri ibn Luqman in 998 AH (1589–90 CE).
• Muhammad Salih Tahtawi:
  • A Mughal metallurgist, astronomer, geometric expert, and craftsman, active during the reign of Shah Jahan.
  • He is remembered for completing the monumental Shah Jahan Mosque (1647–49).
  • In 1659, he headed the task of creating a massive, seamless celestial globe, using a secret wax-casting method, inscribed with Arabic and Persian text.
  • Twenty other such globes were subsequently produced in Lahore and Kashmir during the Mughal period, and the achievement is regarded as a major feat in metallurgy.

Glass Technology

• With the arrival of Muslims, pharmaceutical phials, jars, and glass vessels came to India from Islamic countries, though there is no evidence of Indians fabricating such objects domestically in imitation.
• Europeans brought a variety of glass articles to India, including:
  • Looking-glasses — India already knew how to make metal mirrors, but not glass mirrors.
  • Spectacles.
  • Drinking-glasses.
  • Magnifying or burning glasses.
  • Telescopes.

Printing Press

• European movable metal type was first brought to Goa around 1550 by the Portuguese.
• Jahangir reportedly expressed doubt about the possibility of type being cast in Persian or Arabic scripts during a discussion with Jesuits, who promptly showed him a copy of the Arabic gospel to demonstrate otherwise.
• Bhimji Parekh, chief broker of the English Company at Surat, took a keen interest in this technology; a printer was sent to India in 1674 at his request.

Time-Reckoning Devices

• Clocks and watches:
  • Babur describes the water-clock in the Baburnama; Abu’l-Fazl similarly notes its details.
  • European clocks and watches were often gifted to Indian elite groups — for instance, Jahangir was presented a watch by Sir Thomas Roe.
  • The Jesuit church at Agra featured a public clock-face with a bell.
• Non-acceptance of European clocks:
  • One important reason was the incompatibility of the Indian time-reckoning system with the European system.
  • The Indian system divided the full day into 60 “hours” of 24 minutes each, while the European system used 24 hours of 60 minutes each.

Miscellaneous Technologies

• Building:
  • The true arch, dome, and lime-mortar had already been introduced in India by the Turks; there was no significant development in building technology during the 17th century.
  • The practice of preparing a sort of “blueprint” of a proposed building — called tarh (outline) in Persian — was introduced during this period.
  • Indian buildings lacked window-panes and chimneys, unlike their European counterparts.
• Boilers: India continued to use earthen pots to refine saltpetre, rather than adopting copper boilers as used in Europe.
• Communication:
  • Oxen-drawn carts were in common use for transporting commercial goods.
  • Horse-drawn carriages were very rare, reserved mainly for passengers.
    • Sir Thomas Roe presented Jahangir with an English coach drawn by four horses, which the emperor enjoyed riding and referred to as the “rath firangi.”
    • The sovereign and some nobles subsequently had similar coaches built by Indian carpenters, though this interest proved short-lived.
• Chemical discovery:
  • Itr Jahangir, the rose-scent, was a chemical discovery made in the early years of Jahangir’s reign, as recorded by the emperor himself in his Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri.
  • Saltpetre, though known for the explosive heat it produces in gunpowder, was also used as a means of cooling water — Abu’l-Fazl records details of this technique.
• Grinding:
  • Akbar invented an oxen-drawn cart that, besides being used for travel or carrying loads, could also grind corn.
  • Watermills and windmills (asiya-i-bad; pawan chakk) were scarcely used in India.
    • One Mughal painting (1603) depicts an undershot watermill, though illustrating a story set outside India.
    • One windmill was erected at Ahmedabad in the 17th century, with partial remains visible there subsequently.
    • Handmills, made of two stones, remained the generally used method — a very old practice.
• Overall, while there was genuine development in science and technology across several areas during the Mughal period, India could not match Europe’s pace — a factor considered among the main reasons for the decline of the Mughals and the rise of British power in India.

Astronomy

• The 16th and 17th centuries saw a genuine synthesis between Islamic and Indian astronomy, in which Islamic observational techniques and instruments combined with Hindu computational techniques.
• Mughal astronomers continued to advance observational astronomy, producing nearly a hundred Zij treatises.
• The Mughal Emperors (1526–1858) took keen interest in the development of astronomy, patronising astronomers at their courts; the works thus produced were mainly zijes (astronomical tables) and calendars.
• Humayun built a personal observatory near Delhi; the instruments and observational techniques used at Mughal observatories were derived mainly from the Islamic tradition.
  • One of the most remarkable astronomical instruments developed in Mughal India was the seamless celestial globe.
  • Mulla Chand, a court astronomer of Humayun, produced the Tashil Mulla Chand, a redaction of the Zij-e Ulugh Beg.
• Fariduddin Munajjim, court astronomer of Shah Jahan (d. 1666), compiled the Zij-e Shah Jahani, organised into three sections:
  • Dealing with various calendars.
  • Dealing with spherical astronomy.
  • Dealing with the determination of planetary motions and positions in the sky.
• Malajeet, an astronomer at Shah Jahan’s court, wrote the Parsiprakasa (1643), providing Arabic and Persian astronomical terms alongside their Sanskrit equivalents.
• Two Hindu scholars, Nitya Naad and Menisvara, drew on Arabic, Persian, and Greek works to synthesise Islamic astronomical traditions with those of India.
• Mulla Mahmud Jaunpuri was a versatile scholar, expert in both mathematics and astronomy.

Sawai Jai Singh as an Astronomer

• Raja Sawai Jai Singh (d. 1743) belonged to the Kacchawaha dynasty; he entered imperial service as a Mansabdar during Aurangzeb’s reign and rose to an eminent position under Muhammad Shah.
• His contribution to 18th-century astronomy is remarkable.
  • He had several Greek works on mathematics (including Euclid) translated into Sanskrit, along with more recent European works on trigonometry and logarithms, and Arabic texts on astronomy.
• Astronomical observatories: He founded five major observatories, known as Jantar Mantar, at Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain, Mathura, and Banaras.
  • These observatories consisted of geometric devices for:
    • Measuring time.
    • Predicting eclipses.
    • Tracking the location of stars.
    • Ascertaining the declinations of planets.
    • Determining celestial altitudes.
  • A highly precise sundial among these instruments could tell time to an accuracy of a few seconds.
• Astronomical tables (Zij):
  • Finding the astronomical tables (Zij) then in prevalent use to be defective, Jai Singh decided to prepare new ones.
  • He first built metal instruments, which fell short of his desired accuracy, and therefore constructed a huge instrument at his Delhi observatory.
  • Fluent in Persian and Arabic, and familiar with the Zij-i-Ulugh Beg, he subsequently built similar instruments at the Jaipur, Mathura, Banaras, and Ujjain observatories to verify his observations.
  • Across his five observatories, he employed both Hindu and Muslim observers, producing a comprehensive set of astronomical tables called the Zij-i-Jadid-i-Muhammad Shahi, organised into three sections:
    • Calendars.
    • Determination of heavenly bodies.
    • Motions of the Sun, Moon, and other planets, and solar and lunar eclipses.
  • He incorporated the latest European astronomical knowledge into his work, as evidenced by his use of the Latin tables of Phillipe de la Hire.
• Drawbacks in Jai Singh’s astronomy:
  • A significant limitation was the absence of telescope use in India until the 18th century, which rendered Jai Singh’s observatories outdated, since he did not employ telescopic observation.
  • He sent a series of embassies to Portugal, but Portugal itself was by then out of touch with newer astronomical developments taking place in England and Holland, which were increasingly based on direct observation.
  • His observatories remained grounded in the Ptolemaic (geocentric) view, as repeated by Ulugh Beg, rather than the heliocentric view associated with Brahmagupta and later Copernicus.

Jantar Mantar of New Delhi

• Samrat Yantra: A giant triangular structure functioning as an equal-hour sundial. While basic sundials already existed at the time of its construction, the Samrat Yantra transformed this into a precision instrument.
• Jayaprakash Yantra: Consists of hollowed-out hemispheres marked on their concave surfaces, allowing an observer inside to align the position of a star with the various markings.

Jantar Mantar of Jaipur

• The Jaipur observatory comprises fourteen major geometric devices, including the Samrat Yantra, Jai Prakash, Ram Yantra, and Misra Yantra, used for:
  • Measuring time.
  • Predicting eclipses.
  • Tracking the location of stars as the Earth orbits the Sun.
  • Ascertaining planetary declinations.
  • Determining celestial altitudes and related ephemerides.
• Samrat Yantra (Jaipur): A sundial capable of telling time to an accuracy of about two seconds in Jaipur local time, its shadow carefully calibrated; its face is angled at 27 degrees, corresponding to the latitude of Jaipur.

Alchemy

• Sake Dean Mahomed had learned much of Mughal alchemy, understanding the techniques used to produce various alkalis and soaps — knowledge that ultimately led to the production of shampoo.
• He was also a notable writer, describing the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and the cities of Allahabad and Delhi in rich detail, and recording the glories of the Mughal Empire.
• Sake Dean Mahomed was later appointed “shampooing surgeon” to both King George IV and King William IV of England.

Mathematics

• Faizi (1547–95), poet laureate of Emperor Akbar, translated Bhaskaracharya’s (1114–60) Sanskrit mathematical work, the Lilavati, into Persian in 1587, containing theorems of arithmetic and algebra.
• Among the distinguished Punjabi families contributing to mathematics was that of Ustad Ahmad Lahori (1580–1649), the architect of the Taj Mahal and Red Fort.
  • His son, Ataullah Rashedi, translated the Bij Ganita, written during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan; he also authored Khulasa Raaz (in Persian), dealing with arithmetic, algebra, and measurement, and Khazinatul A’adad, covering arithmetic, Euclidean geometry, and algebra.
  • Another son, Lutfullah Muhandis, wrote Risala Khawas A’adad, dealing with the properties of numbers.
• It appears that mathematics in this period was associated not only with accountancy and revenue collection, but also with astronomy and architecture.
• A number of translations were made from Persian and Arabic into Sanskrit.
• Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh made major contributions to trigonometry, particularly in determining the sine of one degree, and its parts — minutes and seconds.

Pharmacy

• Sultan Alauddin Khilji (1296–1316) maintained several eminent Hakims at his royal court.
  • This royal patronage was a major factor behind the development of Unani practice in India, as well as Greco-Islamic (Unani) medical literature, aided by Indian Ayurvedic physicians.
• During the Mughal period, several Qarabadains (pharmacopoeias) were compiled, including:
  • Qarabadain Shifa’ee.
  • Qarabadain Zakai.
  • Qarabadain Qadri.
  • Elaj-ul-Amraz.
  • These pharmacopoeias specified quantities of drugs in given prescriptions and their methods of preparation.
• Court physicians supervised the preparation of royal medicine, which was sealed to ensure safety.
• Hakeem Ali Gilani was not only a physician but also a renowned mathematician and scientist; as chief physician to Akbar, he invented a kind of sweet wine to relieve travel fatigue.
• Akbar ordered Abu’l-Fazl to translate the Hayatul Haiwan — the celebrated zoological dictionary, compendium of folklore, and popular medicine authored by Musa al-Damiri (d. 1406) — from Arabic into Persian.
• During Jahangir’s reign, Itr-i-Jehangiri was discovered by Noor Jahan.
• Hakim Ain-ul-Mulk Shirazi composed Alfaz-al-Adwiyya (“vocabulary of drugs”) for his royal patron, Emperor Shah Jahan; it was later printed in 1793 in Calcutta, and translated into English by Gladwin.
• Muhammad Raza of Shiraz wrote the treatise Riaz-i-Alamgiri, on medicine, food, and clothing, dedicated to Aurangzeb.
• Hakim Akbar Arzani served as court physician to Emperor Aurangzeb, authoring Tibbe Akbari and Mizan al-Tibb.
• Decline and revival:
  • Under British rule, Eastern medicine in India declined.
  • The house of Hakim Sharif Khan of Delhi made a concerted effort to revive Unani medicine.
  • Hakim Ajmal Khan founded the Hindustani Dawakhana and the Tibbiya College in Delhi.
    • At the Tibbiya College, Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui carried out chemical investigation of certain potent drugs, resulting in the production of Ajmalin.
  • At Lucknow, the Talim al-Tibb college was established under the auspices of Hakim Abdul Aziz.

Indian Responses to European Technology During the Mughal Period

• An important and interesting feature of the Mughal period was the exposure of Indians to European science and technology.
• The Indian response, as noted earlier, was not uniform — it ranged across positive, negative, and neutral (indifferent) reactions, varying from one technology to another for diverse, often valid, reasons.

Positive Responses

• Shipbuilding technology:
  • Indian ship planks were traditionally joined by stitching them with ropes of coir, or with wooden nails.
  • Indians lost little time in adopting the European technique of iron nails and clamps, which made ships stronger and more durable.
  • Anchors made of large stones were similarly replaced by European iron anchors.
  • Buckets, once used to bail leaked water from ships, gave way in the second half of the 17th century to European iron chain-pumps.
• Agricultural technology:
  • A number of crops were introduced by Europeans, including tobacco, potato, maize, and pineapple.
  • The technique of grafting was used by the Portuguese to produce mangoes of the finest quality.
• Astronomy:
  • Raja Sawai Jai Singh had Greek works on mathematics and European works on trigonometry and logarithms translated into Sanskrit.
  • He incorporated the latest European astronomical knowledge into his own work, as evidenced by his Zij, based on the Latin tables of Phillipe de la Hire.
• Rulers and nobles remained constantly on the lookout for European novelties, resulting in the purchase or gifting of items such as globes of the world, glasses, and spectacles, along with substantial house-clocks.
• Silk-reeling: India remained backward in this field, but European technology was slowly adopted, despite considerable opposition.
• Ships and guns were seen as the basis of Portuguese naval superiority, prompting attempts at imitation:
  • The Zamorin of Calicut enticed two Milanese craftsmen away from the Portuguese to manufacture guns for him.
  • The Portuguese writer Castanheda records that four Venetians arrived in Malabar in 1505 to cast guns.

Negative Responses

• Medical science:
  • Bernier held a very poor opinion of Indian knowledge of anatomy.
  • Indian hakims and vaids showed no interest in the European discovery of blood circulation by Harvey and Pecquet.
• Glass technology:
  • Europeans introduced a variety of glass articles, including looking-glasses and spectacles made of glass lenses, but the Indian response was unenthusiastic.
  • India remained backward in glass technology overall: while bangles and jars continued to be made, English drinking-glasses and mirrors were always in demand but never manufactured domestically, as were spectacles.
  • A particularly significant lacuna was the absence of telescopes (dur-bin) until the 18th century — meaning hostile ships could not be sighted at sea, and rendering Jai Singh’s observatories outdated, since he never employed telescopic observation.
    • He did send embassies to Portugal, but Portugal itself lagged behind newer developments in England and Holland.
    • Jai Singh’s observatories also remained tied to the Ptolemaic (geocentric) view, as repeated by Ulugh Beg, rather than the heliocentric view of Brahmagupta and Copernicus.
• Water-lifting devices:
  • Jahangir rejected a British offer to construct a water-lifting device, similar to those on the Thames in London, to pump water from the Yamuna for public use — fearing it would cause a loss of labourers’ work and endanger their livelihoods.
    • The proposal, made by an Englishman, was ultimately dismissed by Sir Thomas Roe himself, and went no further.
  • Similarly, the ship-borne water-pump was rejected in favour of manual bailing by the khalasi (labourer) aboard ship.
    • The use of iron nails, the iron anchor, and the capstan, however, were accepted.
  • The absence of water-pumps also meant that mining could not proceed below the water level in mines.
• Manufacture of cannons and muskets:
  • India remained technologically backward in this field, since guns were not cast as a single piece; instead, holes were made through the mould, and the pieces joined by placing a hot ring over them to fuse with the barrel.
  • A single-piece casting was not possible because Indian furnaces were too small, owing to poor bellows.
  • Good cast-iron could only be produced in large furnaces driven by high-temperature, power-driven bellows.
    • By 1550, European bellows were being worked by “trip-lugs on water-driven shafts, or by systems of cranks, levers and weights.” In India, by contrast, there was no improvement on traditional skin-bellows worked by hand or foot.
  • According to Babur, iron from seven or eight furnaces was needed to make a single cannon; since these pieces varied in quality, the finished cannons were liable to burst.
  • It remains something of a mystery why the Europeans employed by Mir Jumla in 1666, and later in Bengal, did not teach Indians the correct casting method — a gap eventually rectified by Mir Qasim in Bengal and Ranjit Singh in Punjab.
• The technique of oil painting was similarly rejected by Indian painters.

Neutral or Indifferent Responses

• Time-measuring devices:
  • European clocks and watches were gifted to Indians, particularly among elite groups — for example, Jahangir was presented a watch by Sir Thomas Roe.
    • However, there is no evidence of their acceptance by any wider social group in India.
    • The absence of the screw and the spring in Indian craftsmanship may partly explain this reluctance to adopt European house-clocks, which represented the new science of physics developing in Europe and depended on cranks, levers, and weights.
    • The key reason for non-acceptance, however, was the fundamental incompatibility between Indian and European time-reckoning systems.
• Printing press:
  • Jahangir once expressed doubts about type being cast in Persian and Arabic scripts, but after being shown an Arabic version of the Gospel, he did not raise the question again.
  • In the 1670s, however, Bhimji Parekh, chief broker of the English Company at Surat, took a keen interest in this technology.

Explaining the Pattern of Selective Adoption

• The Indian response to Western science has been described as “scrupulously selective in its nature, depending on convenience, utility, exigencies, or other material or pragmatic considerations.”
• The abundance of skilled labour, combined with low subsistence costs, tended to inhibit improvement in tools.
  • A finer product could often be achieved more cheaply through greater application of labour and manual skill than through adopting a mechanical device.
  • There were, however, cases where no amount of additional labour or skill could achieve the desired result — where invention or improvement would have been cheaper than relying on muscle power. The refusal to accept printing presses and the draw loom for weaving patterns are cited as examples of this pattern.
• Another proposed explanation for resistance to new technology is the “extreme specialisation” promoted by the caste system, wherein a father trained his son in the same profession.
  • This practice of passing artisanal skills from father to son, however, was common to all pre-modern societies, including Europe, and was not unique to India.
  • Moreover, whenever a genuinely new profession arose — such as paper-making, fireworks manufacturing, dyeing, printing, or cloth-painting — caste proved no barrier to enlisting new entrants.

Conclusion

• The trajectory of Science and Technology in Mughal India reveals a civilisation capable of remarkable selective innovation — from the cannon foundries of Jaigarh and the rocket brigades of Mysore, to the astronomical observatories of Sawai Jai Singh and the medical scholarship of the Unani tradition.
• Yet, at almost every turn, this innovation remained constrained: by the absence of institutionalised scientific academies, by a ruling class largely indifferent to technologies affecting ordinary labour, and by a selective, pragmatic engagement with European science that never matured into systematic adoption.
• This combination — genuine indigenous ingenuity alongside a failure to institutionalise rational scientific inquiry, as Europe had done from the 15th century onward — is widely regarded by historians as one of the key factors behind both the decline of Mughal power and the eventual rise of British dominance in India, making it an essential analytical theme for UPSC History Optional aspirants.