If one wonders why did not the scientific revolution happen in India some aspects of how knowledge was limited might have an implication. I present here a comparative study of conditions prevailing in the two societies, and how the presence of the printing press disrupted the traditional balance of knowledge and its sharing in the society. Unfortunately, in India, we have no counterpart to this event which could have lead to the spread of knowledge amongst the masses. Even if it were, the rigid caste system would have made it almost impossible for knowledge to be so freely transferred. In an era of a global village, we still feel strong repercussions of caste-based discrimination today.
Consider this about how knowledge was restricted to apprenticeship and was often lost in transition amongst the traditional Indian craftsmen.
The secret of perfection in art and crafts resided in individuals and was never widely publicized. Master-craftsmen trained their apprentices from a very tender age but they did not teach them the more subtle aspects of their craft. Neither did they write books revealing the secrets of their perfection. These points were revealed by the master-craftsman only towards the end of his life and only to a favoured apprentice. Their secrets often died with them. p. 211 (Rizvi - Wonder that Was India Part 2)
This was compounded by the fact that the profession that one could practice was decided by the caste one was born in. In addition to this, the mostly oral nature of the Hindu theology in Sanskrit and exclusive rights to Brahmins as custodians of this knowledge played a huge role in stifling any societal or scientific progress. The extant books (both theological and scientific, mathematical) were mostly in Sanskrit, which again restricted their readership. And as they were reproduced by hand the copies and access to them was limited. The mobility between castes was strictly forbidden. Thus we have both theological as well as scientific, mathematical and technological knowledge bound by tradition which was not available to the general public by its design. Any leakage of such a knowledge to people who were not intended to know it was met with severe punishments.
In contrast to this, consider the situation in Europe. The church did have an control over the knowledge that was taught in the universities. The Bible was in Latin, which can be seen as European counterpart of Sanskrit in terms of its functions and reach, and the Church held authority over its interpretation and usage. The impact of movable type on the spread of the Bible is well known. The translation of the Bible to publicly spoken languages and its subsequent spread to the general public is seen as a major event in the renaissance and subsequently that of the scientific revolution. This was only possible due to the struggle between Catholics and Protestants, again this did not have any counterpart in the Indian context. But as with any subversive technology the printing press did not only print the Bible. Soon, it was put to use to create materials for all types of readership.
First appearing around 1450 in the German city of Mainz, printing rapidly spread from Johann Gutenberg's original press throughout the German territories and northern Italy, most notably Venice. This establishment, during the second half of the century, of scores of print shops corresponds to two related features of European, especially Western European, society at that time. The first is the fairly high rate of literacy on which the market for books and pamphlets was based. The second is the quite sudden wide availability of a multitude oE philosophical and general intellectual options. Together, these two features created a situation in which knowledge for very many people was no longer so chained to the texts of the university curriculum. This was a new situation practically without parallel. p. 24 (Dear - Revolutionizing the Sciences)
This spread led to the creation of books in areas of knowledge where it was guarded or passed through apprenticeship.
In 1531 and 1532 there first appeared a group of small booklets,
known as Kunstbüchlein ("Iittle craft-books"), on a variety of
practical craft and technical subjects. These anonymous books were
produced from the shops of printers in a number of German cities,
and catered to what they revealed as an eager appetite for such
things not just among German craftsmen, but among literate people of
the middling sort in general. They broke the perceived monopoly of
the craft guilds over possession of such practical knowledge as made
up metallurgy, dyeing or other chemical recipes, pottery or any of
a multitude of potential household requisites. p. 26
(Dear - Revolutionizing the Sciences)
Though, as Dear rightly points in the next paragraph just having access to information of paper about a craft does not necessarily lead to practice as experts, it nonetheless helped to overcome a belief about the fact that knowledge indeed can be transferred in the form of books via the printing press.
In the coming century, the presence of the printing press helped the spread of knowledge to all parts of Europe in all subjects of inquiry. There is no parallel to this in the Indian context. Neither the technology (in the form of a printing press) nor the drive to spread the knowledge to the general masses was present in India. In this post, I have glossed over many details but I believe there were two main reasons for a scientific revolution to not happen in India are, first the connection of caste with profession and non-availability of a technology to spread knowledge to the general public. As a result, though earlier we had a better technology and scientific knowledge we did not have a Scientific Revolution. In the current era, with the connected devices, and also with caste not being a barrier to one’s profession, who knows we might be on the doorsteps of a revolution.