When Did the Use of Oud Begin? The Oldest Historical References to Agarwood

When did a human being kindle the first piece of oud? A question that seems simple, but an honest answer to it needs the eye of a historian, not the eye of a storyteller. For many beautiful tales revolve around oud, yet what the texts and documents support is less than that and more precise. In this article we trace the oldest known historical references to agarwood — from the ancient Sanskrit texts, to the physicians of Greece, to the records of China — and we clearly distinguish between what we know from the written evidence and what the folk stories have passed down. And if you want the full picture of oud's journey from the forest to the majlis, we have told it in our comprehensive article on the history of oud and how it traveled from Asia to the Arabian Peninsula.

The oldest known mention of oud in history

When we ask about the oldest mention of oud, we are asking about the oldest written text that has reached us in which this aromatic wood was mentioned — not about the first human use of it, for that is necessarily older and there is no way to date it precisely. For the dwellers of the forests in which the oud trees grow knew their wood that wafts when burned before the texts were written about it by a span of time only God knows, but the historian builds only upon what he reads.

And by this measure, the academic sources note that the oldest known references to oud occur in the ancient Sanskrit texts in India, where it appears as a precious aromatic product from around 1400 years before the common era approximately. That is, oud was known and prized in the Indian subcontinent more than three thousand years before our day — before the founding of Rome, and before Homer wrote his epics.

And the context of this mention reveals the standing of the wood from the very beginning: for the ancient Indian texts did not mention oud as a passing commodity, but mentioned it in the context of the precious fragrance with which one perfumes, draws near in rituals, and which befits the assemblies of kings. That is, oud entered written history through its loftiest gate: the gate of the temple and the court together. And this double standing — the religious and the worldly — will accompany it in every civilization that knew it thereafter.

And here a small methodological pause is warranted: pinning a particular year on an ancient text of this depth is something in which researchers differ, for the dating of the ancient Sanskrit texts themselves is a subject of long academic debate. And this is why we say: around 1400 before the common era according to what the academic sources report, and we content ourselves with the safe conclusion over which there is no dispute: oud is among the oldest documented aromatic materials in the history of humankind.

The names of oud in the ancient civilizations

Among the most charming entrances to history is to trace the names of a single thing across the tongues of nations; for the name preserves its people's view of the named. And oud from this angle is a true linguistic treasure, for it carried in every civilization a name that reveals what they saw in it.

Agaru: the mother Sanskrit name

In Sanskrit oud was known by the name Agaru, which is the root from which the modern global name Agarwood was derived. So when a researcher today writes about agarwood in a scientific journal, he is — perhaps without feeling it — using the echo of an Indian word thousands of years old. And from the same root came the names of oud in a number of the languages of South and Southeast Asia.

Chén xiāng: "the sinking scent" in China

As for China, it named it Chén xiāng (沉香), whose literal meaning is "the sinking scent": the incense that sinks in water. And this name is a historical document in itself, for it establishes that the ancient Chinese grasped the connection between the density of the wood, its fullness of resin, and its quality — for the resin-rich piece is heavier than water so it sinks, and the poor one floats. That is, the criterion of quality that oud merchants use to this day is folded into the ancient Chinese name. And farther than that, the sources attribute to China an early documentation of an essential observation: that the wounding of the tree is what changes its wood and forms the aromatic resin — that is, oud is not the wood of the healthy tree but the fruit of its response to injury, the very truth that modern science confirmed with its biological detail after long centuries.

Agallochum and aloeswood: the Greek-Latin name and its famous confusion

And the Greeks and Romans knew it by names from the family of agallochum, and from it the name aloeswood slipped into the European languages. And here occurred the most famous linguistic confusion in the history of this wood: for the European word "aloe" came to also denote the aloe plant (the succulent known as aloe vera), a plant that has no connection to oud, neither in lineage nor in scent. And this is why the reader of old and modern translations remains in need of alertness: for not every "aloes" in the translated texts is a succulent, and much of it — especially in the contexts of fragrance and incense — is the oud wood itself. And this confusion is an early example of a rule we will return to at the end of the article: reading the history of oud needs precision in the words before assenting to the meanings.

Al-oud: why did the Arabs call it "al-oud"?

As for the Arabs, they chose for it a name that seems at first glance exceedingly modest: al-oud, whose origin in the language is wood or a branch, that is, a general word suitable for any wood. But what happened is more eloquent than any exaggeration: the general name came to prevail over this wood alone, so that "al-oud," when said absolutely, refers only to it. As if the tongue of the Arabs said: if "the wood" is said with the definite article and the emphasis, then no wood deserves this absolute usage but it. And it is a well-known linguistic pattern that befalls things when they reach the summit of their kind, and a silent linguistic proof of the standing this fragrance reached among the Arabs.

The use of oud as incense: temples, rituals, and homes

The oldest documented and widest use of oud is perfuming with it. For the fire releases from the resinous wood what no other means releases, and this is why oud was tied, since its earliest texts, to the censer and the burner, not to the vial.

In ancient India oud was present in the religious rituals and occasions, an incense with which one draws near and the temples and assemblies are perfumed. And with the spread of Buddhism from India toward East and Southeast Asia the tradition of incense moved with it, so oud became among the most precious things perfumed with in the Buddhist temples across Asia. And in China two demands converged upon oud: the demand of the temple and the demand of the court, so it was perfumed with in the rituals as it was perfumed with in the palaces of the upper class as a mark of elevation. And in Japan the celebration of it reached its summit when the venerable art of Kōdō arose around the tasting of its scent.

As for the Arabian Peninsula, oud found when it arrived an established culture of perfuming before it, founded by frankincense and myrrh, so it took its throne. And perfuming with oud became a part of the etiquette of hospitality and adornment in Arab and Islamic culture, and the burner circled in the assemblies its known round to this day. And the story of this arrival and the details of the ports and ships that carried it we have told in full in the article on the history of oud.

And what is noticeable in all of this is that the incense use was not pure luxury in any of these civilizations, but was a language: a language of drawing near in the temple, a language of station in the court, and a language of generosity in the Arab majlis. And whoever wishes to live this language today, its gate is oud bukhoor in its forms, and whoever wishes to make his experience with his own hand, there is oud dedicated to incense making blended in the traditional way.

Oud in ancient traditional medicine

The ancients' esteem for oud did not stop at its scent, but they brought it into the cabinets of their physicians. And the most famous written witness to that from the Western side is the Greek physician Dioscorides, author of the book "De Materia Medica" that remained a reference of pharmacology for long centuries, for he described therapeutic uses for this wood. And the sources place Dioscorides and his book in the first century before the common era or the beginning of it according to the dating of the source and the text — a natural variance in the dating of the figures of that era — but the significance of the witness is fixed: around two thousand years ago oud was a material known in the literature of Greek medicine, that is, it had crossed the road from the forests of Asia to the scientific references of the Mediterranean since that early time.

And in the East its medical presence was older and more firmly rooted: for the ancient Indian medical traditions included Agaru among their therapeutic aromatic materials, and traditional Chinese medicine made Chén xiāng one of its known items over long centuries. And we do not delve here into the details of the recipes and their claims, for that is the responsibility of their heritage, and it suffices us to document historically a single fact: that three great medical systems — the Greek, the Indian, and the Chinese — knew oud and recorded it in their compendiums.

A due caution: all of the above is historical information about the beliefs and practices of ancient medicine, which we relate for documentation, not for recommendation, and it is not a call to use oud as a treatment nor as a substitute for consulting a physician. We at Oud Treasure sell oud as a fragrance and an incense, and we relate its medical history as the historian relates it, not as the physician prescribes.

When did the merchants begin dealing with oud as a luxury commodity?

Whoever imagines that the "luxuriousness" of oud is a modern marketing fabrication is mistaken. For all the ancient witnesses that have passed us indicate that oud entered trade through its highest gate from the beginning, and that dealing with it as a luxury commodity is as old as its documentation nearly. And the reason is purely economic before it is a matter of taste: compound rarity.

For oud is found only in the trees of a single genus that grow in limited forests of the world, and forms only in some of these trees — those that were injured and resisted — and forms only in spots of the injured tree, and needs long years to ripen, then needs someone who penetrates the forest to find it and distinguish it. So if you add to that the distance between its birthplace and its great markets, you understand why oud was never, in any day, a commodity of the popular markets: all the conditions of the luxury commodity converged in it before the world even knew the term "luxury goods."

And this is why we find the early demand for it concentrated where wealth and symbolism are concentrated: the temples that accept in their rituals only the most precious, the courts that exchange it as gifts and boast with it, and the physicians who include it in the most precious compounds. And with the growth of the land and sea trade networks between India, China, and Southeast Asia, then across the Indian Ocean toward the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean, oud became one of the precious cargoes alongside silk, spices, and precious stones, and merchants specialized in it who distinguished its origins and grades and ranked them in their prices — the very system whose routes and ports we detailed in the maritime trade section of the history-of-oud article.

And it is curious that the logic of that ancient market has not changed in its essence: for the ancient merchant graded the pieces by the proportion of resin, the strength of the scent, and the origin, which is exactly what we do today when we sort the grades of premium oud from the daily grades, and define each piece by its origin as in the guides of Indonesian oud. The ships and the scales changed, and the first commercial question remained as it has been for thousands of years: how much resin is in this wood? And from where did it come?

The difference between historical evidence and folk stories

We have reached the section for whose sake we wrote this article. For the history of oud — like the history of every material people have loved — has two layers: a layer of evidence, and a layer of tales. And both are a part of oud's culture, but confusing them spoils the understanding of history as it spoils the oud market itself.

What does the evidence say?

The historical evidence is the texts and documents that can be referred to and dated even if approximately: ancient Sanskrit texts mentioning Agaru as an aromatic product from around 1400 before the common era according to the academic sources, and Greek medical compendiums at their head the book of Dioscorides, and Chinese records that documented the name, the criterion, and the observation of the effect of the wound in the formation of the resin, then the books of the Muslim geographers and travelers that distinguished the origins and the grades. This layer is built upon, and it is correct to say of it: we know.

And what do the tales say?

And alongside that lives a layer of beautiful folk reports: tales of kings who burned of oud what equals kingdoms, legendary pieces a thousand years old, and stories of origin told in every land in a telling that suits its people. These tales are not an enemy of history — for they are themselves a document of people's love for this wood and their magnifying of it — but they are a testimony to feelings, not to facts. And the difference between the two layers is simple: the first is related with an attribution to a text, and the second is related with an attribution to "they said."

How do you distinguish for yourself?

For the intelligent reader there are three quick marks: first, look at whether the statement is attributed to a source that can be traced or is suspended in the air; for the sentence "the academic sources note," which can be reviewed, is not the sentence "it is said from antiquity." Second, beware of sharp numbers in the remote ages: ancient history speaks with "around" and "approximately," so if you see a very ancient date precise to the day and year with no source, that is usually the scent of a story, not a document. Third, the more beautiful the tale than necessary and the more astonishing, the more its due is more verification, not more belief.

And we say it frankly: this very method is the one we adhere to at Oud Treasure when we describe our products. For as we do not attribute to history what the texts do not support, we do not attribute to a piece of oud an origin we have not verified nor a grade we have not tested; our rule is not to describe what we have not burned ourselves. The reader who distinguishes the document from the tale is himself the buyer who distinguishes the honest description from loose talk, and this is why we love our customers to be of this kind — and whoever wishes to test our descriptions against the touchstone, let him begin with oud sample kits and judge with his nose, or let him read our method in full on the about us page.

A timeline: the oldest documented milestones of oud

These are the oldest milestones as the sources sketch them in their broad outlines — with the reminder that the dates of the ancient world are approximate by their nature:

Conclusion: what do we know for certain?

If we summarize the article in a few lines: the written documentation testifies that oud has been known and prized since around three thousand four hundred years ago at least, beginning with the texts of ancient India, passing through its names in China, Greece, and among the Arabs, its presence in the temples and the medical compendiums, and its circulation as a luxury commodity on the great trade routes. And what lies beyond that of tales older and more wondrous, it is people's right to enjoy them, and history's right that they be placed in their correct box.

And the most beautiful thing about the matter is that this long record is not a closed past: for the burner that circles tonight in your majlis is a link in a documented chain extending from the texts of Agaru to your door. And if you would love to grasp the end of this chain with your hand, then begin from natural oud classified by its origin and its grade, or step gradually with oud bukhoor in the sittings of your home.

Read also

This article is part of our series on the history and culture of oud:

• The history of oud: how did it travel from the forests of Southeast Asia to the Arabian Peninsula?
• The history of the oud trade between Indonesia and the Arab world
• Why is oud called oud? The origin of oud's names around the world
• Oud in Arab and Islamic history: from perfuming to assemblies and hospitality
• The kinds of oud trees and the regions of their growth (soon)
• The difference between oud's origins and how you distinguish them with your nose (soon)
• The art of burning: from the coal to the electric burner (soon)