A timeless sign of wealth and honor

Precious piece of Vietnamese agarwood oud

While the strong demand of recent decades has led to overexploitation and the rarity of producing species-driving up the price per kilo of agarwood-oud has always been a coveted, precious material. Across cultures and centuries, this scent is a mark of wealth, a gift to honor gods and kings.

Thus, in the Mahabharata-the great Sanskrit epic of Hindu mythology composed in the final centuries BCE-we find some of the earliest accounts mentioning the use of oud, consistently linked to fortune and honors. This sacred, mytho-historical text, written in the last centuries BCE yet recounting heroic deeds said to have occurred at the start of the first millennium BCE, features numerous episodes with oud, notably as a gift to welcome eminent guests. It is said that the walls of lords’ houses were coated with a paste of black agarwood, exhaling its precious fragrance. Agarwood ranked among the most luxurious tributes, alongside sandalwood, paid by conquered peoples to their victors.

In China, oud has always been among the most precious aromatic natural substances, and there are many references to its extravagant use in accounts that often lie at the crossroads of history and legend. It is told that at the end of the 3rd century, the Emperor of Jingzhou ordered fine agarwood powder to be spread over an ivory bed, and bade his favorites to tread upon it: those who left no trace were rewarded with pearl necklaces; those who scattered the powder were ordered to lose weight. The historian Edward H. Schafer recounts that an 8th-century Chinese prince would speak to his guests only when he had oud and musk in his mouth.

Agarwood is also revered in Japan, where it is one of the most precious substances of kōdō, the traditional incense ceremony-one of the three classical arts of refinement alongside chanoyu (tea ceremony) and ikebana (flower arrangement). The earliest written mention appears in the Nihongi (Nihon Shoki), one of the few official sources on Japan’s origins, compiled in 595 CE. A large piece of agarwood is said to have washed ashore on Awaji Island; the islanders burned it and discovered, by chance, its powerful, heady aroma, then presented it to Empress Suiko. From then on, the resin was regarded as one of the most precious fragrant materials. A famous piece known as Ranjatai-weighing over eleven kilograms and measuring one and a half meters long-was a gift from the Chinese emperor to Emperor Shōmu in the 8th century. It has been devoutly preserved through the centuries as a relic; tiny fragments have been taken only on great, special occasions. Today it is kept in Nara as part of Japan’s National Treasure, and is displayed only on very rare occasions, when the public gathers to view it behind glass.