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Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture
Abstract
This book explores the topic of smell in pre-modern Indian religion and culture. The book provides a comprehensive study of all aspects of smell, covering a period from the turn of the Common Era to the early second millennium CE, and referring to a wide range of sources from poetry to medical texts. In pre-modern South Asia, smells mattered. The sophisticated arts of perfumery that developed in temples, monasteries and courts relied on exotic aromatics, connecting olfactory aesthetics to long-distance ocean trade. A sophisticated religious discourse on the goals of life emphasized that the pleasures of the senses were a valid end in themselves. Fragrances and stinks were also an ideal model for describing other values, be they aesthetic or ethical, and in a system where karmic results often had a sensory impact—where evil often literally stank—the ethical and aesthetic are often difficult to distinguish. Sandalwood and Carrion explores smell in pre-modern India from many perspectives, covering such topics as philosophical accounts of smell perception, odors in literature, the history of perfumery in India, the significance of sandalwood in Buddhism, as well as the question of why people offered perfumes to the gods.
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In the citing paper
“Beyond the fact that smell can create karma, both positive and negative, olfaction also operates on another, even more significant level: namely, as a moral diagnostic.”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“First, as McHugh points out, smell is of ambivalent materiality.Though in pre-modern India it was classified as decidedly material and “non-aetherial” (McHugh 2012, p. 8), smell is situated precisely at the cusp of the material and immaterial.”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“McHugh (2012) discusses this property of olfaction in his study of smell in premodern Vedic, Jain, and Buddhist thought.”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“This is why smelling impure substances, such as corpses, produces ritual pollution (ibid., p. 6).”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“fragrance-producing products-like perfume, incense, soaps, kohl, and mouth fresheners-were traditionally classified as “internal-external” (ibid., p. 4) because despite being “applied to the actual surface of the body . . .they were thought to affect it internally and physiologically in a variety of ways” (ibid.).”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“This may be because, as both Classen and McHugh agree, smells tend to be associated with otherwise invisible inner essences.”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
In the citing paper
“it is the “only sense that allows one to partake of an object's particles at a distance” (ibid.)”
From Both Like and Unlike: Rebirth, Olfaction, and the Transspecies Imagination in Modern Chinese Buddhism (2019) · cites this paper as McHugh 2012
Citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Verchery, L. (2019) · Religions · doi:10.3390/rel10060364 · Cited by 4
Blattes de Byzance in India: Mollusk Opercula and the History of Perfumery
McHUGH, J. (2013) · Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland · doi:10.1017/s1356186312000727 · Cited by 5
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- McHugh, J.
- Corresponding author
- McHugh, James
- Venue
- Oxford University Press eBooks
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2012-10-16
- OpenAlex
- W4214589842
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 8.63
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Indian and Buddhist Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › General Arts and Humanities › Cultural and Mythological Studies
- Keywords
- olfaction, Indian culture, perfumery, sandalwood, Buddhism, sensory perception, religious offerings, sensory aesthetics, ethics and aesthetics
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199916306.001.0001
- The paper
- McHugh, J. (2012). Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture. Oxford University Press eBooks. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199916306.001.0001
