In India sandalwood is not just a fragrance: it is a sacred material that accompanies religious life from birth to death. It is ground into paste to mark the forehead, offered to divine images, burned in incense sticks, and carved into statues and devotional objects. Few woods in the world have such a close relationship with the sacred.
The wood and its origin
Indian sandalwood comes from the tree Santalum album, found mainly in southern India. The fragrant part is the heartwood, the core of the wood, together with the roots. The scent develops slowly as the tree grows, which is why quality sandalwood takes many years.
The region of Mysore, in present-day Karnataka, has for centuries been associated with the production of fine sandalwood, so much so that its name became almost synonymous with this wood in trade.
Sandalwood paste
The most traditional way of using sandalwood is to grind it. A piece of wood is rubbed on a flat stone moistened with a little water, producing a pale, fragrant paste called chandan in Hindi. This paste has many ritual uses:
- Offering to divine images: the paste is applied to the statues or symbols of the deities.
- Forehead marks: devotees use it to draw marks called tilaka.
- Decorating objects of worship: lamps, vessels and altars may be marked with the paste.
In pūjā, the domestic and temple worship of Hinduism, the offering of a fragrant substance, called gandha, is one of the fundamental gestures, and sandalwood is its most classic form.
Marks on the forehead
The marks drawn on the forehead often indicate belonging to a devotional tradition. Devotees of Vishnu draw vertical marks, which may be made with clay or sandalwood paste; devotees of Shiva draw three horizontal lines, usually with sacred ash. Sandalwood, pale and fragrant, is often associated with a quality of coolness and serenity.
The forehead mark also has a more general symbolic meaning: it indicates the point between the eyebrows, regarded in many yogic schools as a centre of inner attention, and reminds devotees of the presence of the divine in their daily life.
Sandalwood in the Jain tradition
In Jainism too sandalwood holds an important place. The worship of the images of the Tirthankaras, the liberated teachers, may include an eightfold offering, the aṣṭaprakārī pūjā, comprising water, sandalwood paste, flowers, incense, a lamp, rice, sweets and fruit. Applying sandalwood paste to the images, at precise points on the body, is one of the central moments of this rite.
Sandalwood in poetry
Classical Indian poetry made sandalwood a recurring symbol. Two images are particularly well known:
- Mount Malaya: in literary tradition sandalwood forests grow on this southern mountain range, and the breeze descending from it, laden with fragrance, is a conventional motif of love poetry and of spring.
- The coiled serpents: another poetic motif tells that snakes wind themselves around sandalwood trunks without the wood losing its fragrance. The image has been read as a symbol of the virtuous person who remains whole even when surrounded by evil.
A saying widespread in India holds that sandalwood perfumes even the axe that fells it. It is one of the most beautiful images of generosity: the good remain good even towards those who wound them.
Images carved in sandalwood
Dense and fragrant, sandalwood has long been used to carve statues, boxes and devotional objects. The Buddhist tradition preserves a famous legend: King Udayana, grieving at the absence of the Buddha, who had ascended to heaven to preach to his mother, is said to have had an image of the teacher carved in sandalwood. In East Asia this legendary statue was regarded as the model for many later images, and the story links sandalwood to the theme of a presence that continues even when the teacher is far away.
Sandalwood and the final passage
In Hindu funeral rites the body is traditionally cremated on a wooden pyre. Families who can afford it add sandalwood to the pyre, to honour the deceased and accompany them with a fragrance regarded as pure. Here too sandalwood marks a passage: as it was offered to the gods, it is offered to the one who leaves the world.
In short
- Indian sandalwood comes from Santalum album, mainly in southern India.
- Chandan paste is made by rubbing the wood on a stone with water.
- It is used to offer fragrance to the deities and to draw tilaka marks on the forehead.
- In Jainism it is part of the eightfold offering to the images of the Tirthankaras.
- Poetry has made it a symbol of integrity and generosity.
