10 Facts About India ink

India ink is a simple black or coloured ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing and outlining, especially when inking comic books and comic strips.

Basic India ink is composed of a variety of fine soot, known as lampblack, combined with water to form a liquid.

India ink is commonly sold in bottled form, as well as a solid form as an inkstick, which must be ground and mixed with water before use.

Woods and Woods state that the process of making India ink was known in China as early as the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, in Neolithic China, whereas Needham (1985) states that inkmaking commenced perhaps as early as 3 millennia ago in China.

India ink was first invented in China, but the English term Indi ink was coined due to their later trade with India.

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India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called masi, an admixture of several substances.

In India, the carbon black from which India ink is formulated was obtained indigenously by burning bones, tar, pitch, and other substances.

Traditional Chinese method of making India ink was to grind a mixture of hide glue, carbon black, lampblack, and bone black pigment with a mortar and pestle, then pour it into a ceramic dish where it could dry.

Chinese had used India ink derived from pine soot prior to the 11th century AD, when the polymath official Shen Kuo of the mid Song Dynasty became troubled by deforestation (due to the demands of charcoal for the iron industry) and sought to make ink from a source other than pine soot.

Common ingredient in India ink, called carbon black, has been used by many ancient historical cultures.