The Scent of Prayer

The lama sighed and shrank into himself, a dingy, shapeless mass. In the pauses of their talk they could hear the low droning – ‘Om mane pudme hum! Om mane pudme hum!’ – and the thick click of the wooden rosary beads.

-Kim, Rudyard Kipling

These prayer beads are called Japa Mala. They are commonly made of sandalwood, the most precious fragrant wood of the east, sacred to Buddhists and Hindus in Tibet, Nepal, India, China and Bhutan.

The scent of sandalwood is arresting.  Sweet, smooth, buttery and velveteen, the aroma itself is an aura.  Holy by nature, blonde in color, sandalwood glows on the skin like a halo of peace, calm and sanctity.

The most spiritually evocative scent in Indian culture, sandalwood is burned in devotion, inhaled as a grounding force in meditation, used in the construction of temples and crafting of icons.  If you go to a holy site in India, the air is always saturated with the scent of sandalwood and ash…

Sandalwood finds richness in its purity – a contradiction of sorts that makes the wood proudly unique.  Simple, though possessing depth.  Bare, yet complex.  Quiet, but strong.

…not unlike the monks who repeat their mantras while passing each bead through their fingers, consuming the touch and scent of the sacred wood.

There is a magic to this scent, and it seems to whisper that there might be something more.

Kim was conscious that beyond the circle of light the room was full of things that smelt like all the temples of all the East.  A whiff of musk, a puff of sandalwood, and a breath of sickly Jessamine-oil caught his opened nostrils.

“I am here,” said Kim at last, speaking in the vernacular: the smells made him forget that he was to be a Sahib.

-Kim, Rudyard Kipling