History: A Timeless Scent
Topic 1
5 mins
Learn about the ancient history of sandalwood as a fragrance, and its rise to become a foundation of perfumery as both a fixative and base note.
A Mainstay for Millennia
Sandalwood has been prized for its distinctive scent since at least the 7th Century BCE, when it was mentioned in Yaska's Nirukta. References to its heady scent abound in subsequent Hindu literature, including the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Meanwhile, early Buddhist and Jain texts (from 300 BCE) make constant references to sandalwood, primarily as paste and scented water.
It was the scent du jour for royalty like emperor Yudhisthira (Mahabharata) and Bhodisatva Mahaushada (Jakata tales), who used it in their bathing and perfuming rituals. Sandalwood was also noted as a taxable good in Kautilya’s Arthashastra (300 BCE), considered the first detailed treatise on economics and taxation. Its identification criteria: texture like clarified butter, hardwood with a soft appearance, and a tenacious sweet woody aroma.
Sandalwood – previously only used as a fine powder, paste or scented water – became a foundation of perfumery as both a fixative and base note.
More than a Fragrance
During this period, the 'attar' emerged, a sandalwood base infused with floral and other aromatics. In Kannauj, perfume houses have a continuous tradition and lineage of attars dating back to 10th century CE. Even today, attars are considered the most significant perfumery product since the middle ages. Unlike western-style perfumes, Attar compositions are considered more than fragrance. Customers purchase them for their health benefits, medicinal use and flavour. For example, you can often find attars used in mouth fresheners, considered an essential part of perfumery in Indian and Arabic cultures. Attars also serve as a raw ingredient for other products – such as Attar Shamama, used in tobacco and incense.
Photograph by Udit Kulshreshtra
Location: Pragati Aroma, Kannauj. Uttar Pradesh India
The Art of Blending
Attar works on the principle of distilling or extracting – but never blending – finished products. When it comes to composition, its key ingredients tend to be generic, with sandalwood commonly at its base. Yet its minor additions, proportions and processes vary between perfume houses, giving each attar its unique flavour.
The art of blending, however, is an Arabic perfumery innovation. Merchants purchase the pure oils or attars from primary perfumers, which are blended by a perfumer to their own or their clients’ palate. These blends are known as Mukhallat and are widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. Sandalwood plays a vital role in Mukhallat blending as the base and fixative.
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