The cultivation of sugar cane, a plant probably indigenous in New Guinea, spreads through southeast Asia in prehistoric times.
The first mention of its use, crushed for its sweet juice, is in northern india in the 4th century BC.
Both sugar and candy derive from Sanskrit words
(sarkara, khanda).
Sugar processed for use in solid form must wait for almost a millennium.
The first certain reference to it is Persia in the 6th century AD.