Essay:Indigo and IndiaBy Sunny NarangI find it funny those questioning the name of India , when one of the most ancient dyes is named after the "Indian Dye" that is Indigo or Neel in Sanskrit .Before the Arabs called us Hind , the Greeks and Romans had been trading textiles and called us India .Till almost 1880's there was no synthetic alternative to Indigo dye , till the Germans found one . Synthetic dyeing is just about a 100 year old history . The whole world wore textiles only out of natural dyes till late 19th century . Indigo is among the oldest dyes to be used for textile dyeing and printing. Many Asian countries, such as India, China, Japan, and SOUTHEAST Asian nations have used indigo as a dye (particularly silk dye) for centuries. The dye was also known to ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Britain, Mesoamerica, Peru, Iran, and Africa.India is believed to be the oldest center of indigo dyeing in the Old World. It was a PRIMARY supplier of indigo to Europe as early as the Greco-Roman era. The association of India with indigo is reflected in the Greek word for the dye, indik�n (???????, Indian). The color indigo was named after the indigo dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species.The I. tinctoria species was domesticated in India. Indigo, used as a dye, made its way to the Greeks and the Romans, where it was valued as a luxury product.Species of Indigofera were cultivated in India, East Asia and Egypt in antiquity. Pliny mentions India as the SOURCE of the dye, imported in small QUANTITIES via the Silk Road. The Greek term for the dye was ??????? ???????? ("Indian dye"), which, adopted to Latin as indicum and via Portuguese gave rise to the modern word indigo.The first known recorded use of indigo as a color name in ENGLISH was in 1289.Indigofera tinctoria, also called true indigo, is a species of plant from the bean family that was one of the original sources of indigo dye. It has been naturalized to tropical and temperate Asia, as well as parts of Africa, but its native habitat is unknown since it has been in cultivation worldwide for many centuries. Explanation:please follow me