Yep ... I know that eye glasses and cataract surgery were done there first (the ruined lens was poked out of place with a copper wire, then a pair of glasses became the primary lens and the cornea became the secondary lens). And obviously you needed to be able to produce glass to make eye glasses. There was also early production of stainless steel.
I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that kind of science, you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?
>>you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?
One word, Entropy!
As an Indian, I can tell you India has seen many cycles of ups and downs. And its not just mere technical culture, there is tons of other things. Food, literature, language, poetry, food, clothes, music, religions, philosophy and what not. I don't know any other country in the world comes close to matching this. Buddha arrived in India in around 500 BC. And that was one of India's peak times in Spiritual and philosophical tradition.
There are languages that are totally extinct, cultures that have faded away. Massive amounts of literature lost completely to mankind.
But Mainland India has been invaded many times, colonized, bulk of its wealth plundered. Add to this the overall entropy of the system.
A simple question to you would be like this. Can you be sure US will remain the world super power 200 years from now.
I'm not as well-versed in Indian history as I should be ... with that kind of science, you would have expected a dominant technical culture but why was this knowledge lost instead?