“Scarcity of sandalwood”

Kayomarz Patel’s letter, ("Scarcity of sandalwood,” Readers’ Forum, Par­siana, November 2003) was logical and telling.

I do not know why we Parsis offer sandalwood at the fire altars. Sandalwood is not mentioned in our scriptures and was not offered by the ancient and medieval Zoroastrians in Iran and "extended Iran.” Sandalwood is a product of tropical countries, like agar and loban (aloe and frankincense) are the products of tropical Iraq and Arabia. It was unknown to the Iranian Zoroastrians.

We started offering sandalwood after coming to India and learning of its highly aromatic property. In Atash Nyaish it is specifically mentioned that the consecrated fire looks forward to the offering of clean, dry and honestly obtained firewood from the devotee and, in turn, blesses him.

Sandalwood shop at Bombay’s Dhobitalao

About three years back, the unofficial estimate of the hoard of sandalwood with the forest bandit Veerappan was 140 metric tons — to say nothing of the 100 tusks removed from the poached elephants.

We Parsis are environment-conscious. There are repeated scriptural references to that quality. If we want to save our forests from further denudation, let us stop offering sandalwood and offer only dry kathis of baval.

Incidentally, we are not the biggest consumers of sandalwood. The biggest consumers are the makers of sandalwood artifacts and the extractors of oil from it, for the perfumery industry. Some rich Hindus cremate the corpses in sandalwood. In this environment crisis, let us play our part well.

B. T. DASTUR