[ariel]

Jim,
I agree with Estcrh.
Industrial production of steel was introduced to India by the Brits.
Prior to that, Indians used exclusively the old tried-and-true kiln method , making relatively small ingots of crucible steel. Thus, paradoxically, all older Indian steel was "crucible" i.e, potentially wootz-y :-)))
In a way, this is similar to the old European way of making steel by employing bloomery process, separating parts of the bloom with high and low carbon content and then combining them by forging ( identically to the Japanese tamahagane). Thus all old European steel implements ( just like the Japanese ones) were in effect mechanical damascus:-)

Only with the European inventions of methodologies allowing final output of large amounts of uniformly homogeneous product, did we become capable of making truly "plain" steel.

And these processes made both " bloomery Damascus" as well as "crucible wootz" totally obsolete literally overnight.

Funny how the so-called "plain" product was in reality the result of a very complex technological evolution.