INDIGOFERA 



Indigo 



THE INDIGO PLANT 



Area Shifted. 



Cultivation In 

 Bombay. 



Agra. 



Indication of 

 Indigofera. 



Pinch's 

 Account. 



p. 1131) of South India, the plant which would appear to have been used prior 

 to the introduction of the species of Indigofera ; of the indigoes of Burma 

 (such as Gym-nemo, tint/ens) ; of Cochin-China (SpUanthes tinctorin) ; 

 and of North China and Siberia (Pofi/f/oiimn tinctorium). These and 

 many others are plants which have been, or are being, used as sources of 

 this particular dye in some parts of India. Is it to be wondered at, 

 therefore, that the early records of the industry leave on the mind of the 

 student the suspicion that the plant used in early times was, in all pro- 

 bability, not always the indigo of to-day ? Not only has the modern 

 industry shifted from Agra and Gujarat to Bengal, but the plant grown 

 has been changed completely. [C/. Joret, Les PL dans UAntiq., etc., 1904, 

 ii., 271, 345-6.] 



It may serve a useful purpose to quote in some detail and in 

 sequence of date a few of the more instructive accounts of the indigo 

 industry of India. It is thus contemplated to concentrate attention 

 on the Indian issues, and if possible to exemplify from past historic 

 records and scientific experience the directions of possible economy and 

 improvement. 



Historic Records of Indigo. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (80 A.D.) 

 (McCrindle, transl., 17, 109) speaks of indigo as exported from Barbarikon, 

 a Skythian town on the Indus and the port for the metropolis Minnagar. 

 Marco Polo (1298) gives a grotesque, though accurate, account of the Native 

 indigo industry as seen by him at Coilum (Quilon). " It is made of a certain 

 herb which is gathered, and (after the roots have been removed) is put into great 

 vessels upon which they pour water and then leave it till the whole of the plant is 

 decomposed. They then put this liquid in the sun, which is tremendously hot 

 there, so that it boils and coagulates, and becomes such as we see it. (They then 

 divide it into pieces of four ounces each, and in that form it is exported to our 

 parts)." Athanasius Nikitin (1468) (a Russian traveller) speaks of Kanbat (Cam- 

 bay) where the indigo grows. Vasco da Gama (1498), Varthema (1503), and 

 Barbosa (1516), who all visited Gujarat and the west coast of Bombay, make no 

 mention of indigo, from which circumstance it may be inferred to have been a 

 comparatively unimportant industry. Garcia de Orta (1563), however, gives a 

 short account of its cultivation and manufacture in Western India. He calls it 

 the Anil of the Arabs and Turks, the gali and nil of Gujarat, and remarks that 

 it is tested for purity by burning, when there should be no sand in the residue, 

 and by being so light that it may float on water. Acosta (Tract, de las Drogas, 

 1578, 406) describes the Anil of Gujarat. Barrett (1584) mentions indigo from 

 Zindi and Cambaia. It is not apparently referred to in Baber's Memoirs, 1519- 

 25, and is but mentioned m the Ain-i-Akbari, 1590 (Gladwin, transl., ii., 28, 41), 

 as produced at Agra. Linschoten (Voy. E. Ind., 1598, i., 61-2; ii., 91) speaks of 

 " Annil " or indigo as it " groweth only in Cambaia and is there prepared and made 

 ready, and from thence carried throughout the whole world." So again, he says, 

 "Annil or indigo by the Guserates is called gali, by others nil : it is a costly 

 colour and much caryed and trafiqued into Portingall : it groweth in India in 

 the kingdom of Cambaia : the hearbe is very like rosemary, and is sowed like 

 other hearbes, and when the season serveth is pulled and dryed and then made 

 wette and beaten, and so certain dayes after dryed againe and then prepared." (In 

 passing it may be here pointed out that the passage just quoted implies that at 

 the time Linschoten wrote, the dry-leaf process was pursued in Gujarat.) 



Fran$ois Pyrard (Voy.E. Ind. (ed. Hakl. Soc.), 1601-10, ii., 359, etc.) repeats 

 the account given by Linschoten. In The First Letter Book of the East India 

 Company, 1605-6, Birdwood and Foster quote a letter of instructions to pur- 

 chase Indico of Lahar (Lahore), Serchis (Sarkhej, 5 miles S.W. of Ahmedabad) 

 and Belondri (? Ballabi, a village 20 miles from Bhavanagar). Finch (Travels 

 in India, in Purchas' Pilgrimes, 1607, i., 429) affords the first definite conception 

 of the indigo industry of India, or rather of Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, and 

 from him perhaps dates the conception of the plant being an Indigofera: 

 " The herb Nill, groweth in form not much unlike Gives or Cich-pease, having a 

 gmall leafe like that of Sena, but shorter and broader, and set on a very short 



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