The History of Fingerprint Identification in India

During the ancient era, the Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Argentinians had a fairly good knowledge of the science of fingerprinting. However, the oldest documents on this subject are found in India and Argentina, and probably, this discipline evolved contemporaneously in these two countries. Indians were not only aware of the importance of this discipline but were also quite passionate about taking it to great heights. This passion brought about the metamorphosis of fingerprinting from a mere curiosity stage to a more sophisticated stage, replacing all other trivial identification systems. This note traces the evolution of fingerprint identification from the ancient era through the medieval era to the modern era of Indian history.