Thread by @Bharathgyan

AGARBATTI

Agar is an evergreen tree which mainly grows in the tropical climate of India & neighbouring lands.

Agar is a fragrance that is obtained when the heartwood of the Agar tree is attacked by a fungal infection & gives out a resin, which gets embedded in the heartwood.

The infected portion of the tree trunk becomes darker in colour and it is these portions which give out the most exotic smell in the world, when burnt.

Indians will readily relate to Agar when the word Agarbatti is mentioned.

Agarbatti is the word for incense sticks, since incense sticks originally were made from Agar wood. Batti means a wick. Agarbatti is a wick of Agar wood which is burnt to give fragrance.

The name Agar for this tree & Agarbatti can be traced to Samskrt word aguru for this tree.

The word Guru in Samskrt means that which is weighty, heavy. Aguru means light weighted, not heavy. The Agar tree wood is indeed soft, light weighted but strong and durable.

Also Gara in Samskrt means poisonous fluid.

Agar, Agaru thus is a name for a tree that oozes out poisonous resin and Agarvarthi was the word used for incense stick from Agar as varthi means a wick, that which is rolled, that which denotes a roll or wrap around something.

Varthi also means a mix of different substances that is used as an ointment, lotion or cosmetic. All of these denote an incense stick, which is a stick coated with a paste of various perfumes and woodchips. This Agarvarthi over time became Agarbatti.

Dhoop and Sambhrani were further forms of these incense sticks. The tribals had harvested Agar sustainably from these precious trees for millennia, to leave behind a legacy for us.

Sadly though, greedy poachers & short visioned people in the trade, in the last couple of centuries, today have made this a flourishing industry at the cost of cruelty to the trees by indiscriminately exposing these trees to the fungus and by chopping these trees for their wood.

Typically, it is the 50 year old, mature trees that give out the best resin in a slow process and hence the best aroma.

Today, in the name of industry, young, immature trees are brutally nailed to create artificial wounds or injected with bottles of chemicals, to artificially trigger the defence
mechanism of the tree, in order to create the resin fast.