Like countless other cultures, the development of trigonometry in Indian culture stemmed from its significantly important purposes in astronomy. It is presumed that the basic knowledge of trigonometry developed from Greek knowledge, shared amongst the Roman trade routes. This assumption is further justified due to Ancient Indian mathematicians referring to the standard radius of a circle as "R", just as Hipparchus did. Nonetheless, Indian Mathematicians were rapidly devolving new improvements to previously known identities and laying foundational knowledge for millennia to come.

To trace back the history of trigonometric identities applied in Mathematics Extension 1, developments leading up to the discovery must be addressed. For instance, the construction of sine tables played an incredibly large role in the development of trigonometric identities, The earliest version of this table was constructed in the 5th century and was known as the “Paitamahasiddhanta”. Nonetheless, the most well-preserved sine table is from Arybhata’s work, Aryabhatiya (see Figure 2). This sine table sparks continuous discourse amongst mathematicians who question the mathematical steps Arybhata took to achieve his result. A common perspective is that the tabular values were achieved by employing the cumulative sine differences to find an approximate sine value. Others argue that the values were achieved from the prior knowledge of the known values of Sin(30), Sin(45), Sin(60), and Sin (90), as well as the trigonometric identities of sin2x+cos2x=1 (since R=1).