Indigo—meaning ‘from India’ in Greek—is the oldest colour ever invented, around 5,000 years ago, finding mention in the Vedas as well. The first indigo pigments, history tell us, were imported from India to the Graeco-Roman empires. It was also used in ancient Egypt, worn by mummified pharaohs; in China, ‘blue plants’ or lan cao were the rage during the Qin and Han dynasties. The Arabs christened it an-nil, and in Sanskrit, it was referred to as nila or blue.
Traded from India by the colonisers, indigo was used in the courts of Europe (‘royal blue’) and also became an instrument of
