Ancient Indian ergonomics wisdom and its contemporary significance

Abstract The use of ergonomics principles can be traced back to ancient times, much before the coining of the term ‘ergonomics’. Ancient civilisations of Greece, China, and India followed well laid down principles of usability and human factors. These are evident in their furniture design, tool design, and other practices to minimise workers’ workload. In ancient India, most daily activities like cooking, dining, defecation, etc., and occupations like pottery making, shoemaking, education in gurukuls (traditional residential schools), etc., used one or the other asanas (postures). The aim was to maintain the body’s natural shape, avoiding the ill effects of poor body posture. The present paper reviews those domains of practice viz. posture, architecture, agriculture and furniture design in ancient India (2500 BCE to 1100 CE), where modern ergonomics principles seem evident.