Agarwood History: 2,000 Years of Trade From the Maritime Silk Road to Modern Plantations

In one sentence, agarwood history is the story of a rare resinous wood moving from Asian forests to distant buyers who valued it above almost any other aromatic. The routes, the buyers and the rules changed many times, but the basic pattern never did.^[1]

The numbers explain the price. According to Liu et al. (2013), only about 10% of Aquilaria trees produce agarwood without human help, so most supply today comes from induced, cultivated trees.^[6]

The wood itself is simple to describe. Agarwood is the dark, fragrant heartwood that forms when an Aquilaria tree is wounded and infected, and fills the damaged tissue with resin. For a fuller explanation of the material, our guide what oud actually is and how it forms covers the biology.

What made it valuable is just as simple. Resin forms only in a small share of wild trees, and nobody could see it from outside the bark. Therefore supply was always uncertain, and the best pieces were always scarce.

That scarcity shaped two thousand years of trade. It explains why agarwood was a tribute item for emperors, a ship cargo worth insuring, a collector's object in Japan and, eventually, a species protected under international law.

Why the Names Tell the Story

The names of agarwood trace its trade routes. The English word "agar" is usually traced back to Sanskrit aguru, by way of Malay gaharu. The Arabic ʿūd simply means wood, and Greek writers used a word close to agallochon.^[1]

Chinese calls it chén xiāng (沉香), "sinking fragrance", because the densest pieces sink in water. Japanese calls it jinkō, and older English texts often say aloeswood. Every major culture on the route gave the wood its own name, which is a good sign of how far it travelled.

The earliest records show agarwood as a luxury aromatic in South Asia, the Mediterranean and China well before the modern era. However, ancient texts rarely describe species, so some identifications rely on scholarly interpretation.

In South Asia, Sanskrit literature mentions aguru among fragrant woods used in worship and perfumery. That fits the botany, because Aquilaria grows naturally in north-east India and neighbouring regions.

In the Mediterranean, the first-century Greek physician Dioscorides described agallochon as an imported fragrant wood. Roman buyers paid for it as a long-distance luxury, much like pepper or frankincense.

Are the "Aloes" in the Bible Agarwood?

Several biblical passages mention "aloes" alongside myrrh and cinnamon. Many scholars read these as agarwood rather than the aloe plant, because the texts treat it as a perfume material. Nevertheless, this remains an interpretation, not a settled fact.

The naming confusion still affects buyers today. Our post on why aloeswood is not aloe vera explains how that old word survives in Western incense catalogues.

Agarwood moved mainly by sea. Ships carried it along the Maritime Silk Road, the network of routes linking southern China, Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf and East Africa.

Sea transport suited the material well. Agarwood is light for its value, it keeps for years if stored dry, and it does not spoil like food cargo. Moreover, the monsoon winds made seasonal voyages predictable enough for regular trade.

Wood flowed in more than one direction. Southeast Asian forests, including the coasts of present-day Vietnam, Cambodia and the Malay world, supplied China, India and the Arab world. Meanwhile, southern China had its own native species, Aquilaria sinensis, which also entered the trade.

Guangzhou, Quanzhou and the Song Incense Trade

Guangzhou, the capital of our province, was a major port for foreign trade from at least the Tang dynasty. Arab and Persian merchants lived and traded there, and aromatics were among the goods they handled.

Under the Song dynasty, the state set up maritime trade offices in Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other ports to register and tax foreign cargo. Aromatics such as agarwood, frankincense and other resins formed a large category of these imports. For that reason, some historians describe this sea route as an "incense road".

Song writers also wrote about agarwood with real connoisseurship. They compared origins, praised wood from Hainan Island and from Champa in central Vietnam, and graded pieces by density and scent.

Hong Kong, the "Fragrant Harbour"

Hong Kong's name, 香港, means "fragrant harbour". A commonly told explanation links the name to the incense trade from Guangdong. In this account, wood from local incense trees was gathered in the Dongguan area and today's New Territories, then shipped from a small harbour on Hong Kong Island.

That local agarwood was known as guanxiang (莞香), after Dongguan, and came from Aquilaria sinensis, the same species we grow. According to the story, the cargo went on to Guangzhou and further north, and the harbour took its name from the trade.

We repeat this with a caveat. Historians also mention other explanations for the name, and the incense account is a widely accepted tradition rather than a proven fact. Even so, Aquilaria sinensis still grows wild in Hong Kong's countryside, which keeps the connection visible.

Japan's agarwood history begins, by tradition, in 595 CE. The chronicle Nihon Shoki records that a log drifted ashore on Awaji Island, and that islanders burning it as firewood noticed its remarkable scent and sent it to the court.^[2]

The story may be partly legend, but its message is accurate. Japan has no native Aquilaria, so every piece of jinkō ever burned there arrived by sea. Consequently, Japanese buyers have always been importers, and very demanding ones.

Agarwood reached Japan together with Buddhism and continental court culture. It was burned in temples, used to scent robes and rooms, and later blended into kneaded incense for aristocratic games.

The Ranjatai in the Shōsōin

The most famous piece of agarwood in Japan is the Ranjatai, a large hollow log kept in the Shōsōin, the imperial treasure house in Nara. It has been part of that collection for many centuries, although scholars still discuss exactly when and from where it arrived.

Its name is a small puzzle. The three characters 蘭奢待 each contain one character of Tōdaiji (東大寺), the temple that the Shōsōin served. In other words, the name hides the temple inside it, which tells you how highly the wood was regarded.

Tradition also records that powerful rulers were allowed to cut small pieces from it. Labels on the log mark cut points traditionally attributed to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the warlord Oda Nobunaga and the Meiji Emperor. Therefore the Ranjatai was not only a fragrance; it was also a symbol of political rank.

From Court Scent to Kōdō

Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, appreciation of agarwood became a formal art called kōdō, "the way of incense". Schools such as Oie-ryū and Shino-ryū set rules for heating small slivers of wood and identifying them by scent.^[2]

Kōdō created a lasting market for top-grade wood, especially kyara, the Japanese term for the finest resin. Our post on the kōdō incense ceremony and its tools explains how the practice works today.

For modern buyers, Japan remains a market that values consistency and documentation. Incense makers there still buy fine agarwood powder and wood for pressed incense, and our Japanese-style koh incense starts from $6/g with a 100 g MOQ.

The Middle East became the biggest buyer because agarwood sits at the centre of everyday hospitality, personal fragrance and religious life across the Arabian Peninsula. Demand there is old, broad and steady, rather than limited to collectors.

The trade link is ancient. Arab and Persian ships carried aromatics between the Gulf, India and China for centuries, and medieval Arabic writers on perfume treated ʿūd as one of the noblest materials. They also classified it by place of origin, much as buyers ask about origin today.

Hadith collections record the use of ʿūd as incense, and burning it remains a common way to honour guests. In a Gulf home, a mabkhara of smouldering chips or bakhoor often closes a visit. We keep this description to well-documented custom rather than doctrine.

The Oil Era and Modern Demand

Demand grew sharply in the late twentieth century as Gulf incomes rose. A TRAFFIC study of Aquilaria malaccensis trade described the Middle East as a leading consumer of both wood and oil, with regional hubs re-exporting material from producing countries.^[1]

That pressure fell mostly on wild trees. Collectors cut many trees to find the few with resin, and wild stocks declined across several producing countries. As a result, regulators began to pay attention.

Today Gulf buyers purchase across the whole product range. Oud wood chips for burning start from $0.24/g on our graded oud chips page, and blended bakhoor for majlis use starts from $6/g with a 250 g MOQ.

India, Assam and the Attar Link

India played two roles. Assam and the north-east supplied wood and oil from local Aquilaria, while perfumers in Kannauj built a long tradition of distilling attars, including oils containing agarwood.

Distilled oud oil, called dehn al oud in the Gulf, made agarwood easier to wear and transport. Today we produce it in-house by hydro distillation, and our hydro-distilled oud oil starts from $7.00/g with a 10 g MOQ.

Agarwood was listed because heavy demand was depleting wild Aquilaria populations. Aquilaria malaccensis entered CITES Appendix II in 1995, and in 2004 the listing was extended to all Aquilaria and Gyrinops species.^[3]

• What Appendix II means: trade is allowed, but exporting countries must issue permits showing the material was legally obtained and that trade does not threaten the species.
• Plantation material: cultivated agarwood is still Aquilaria, so it still needs CITES paperwork for most international shipments.
• Annotation #14: the listing carries an annotation that exempts some finished, retail-packaged products. Check the current annotation text before you plan a shipment, because CITES meetings can change it.
• Our practice: every wholesale shipment leaves with a grading note and a CITES Appendix II export permit where required, plus a phytosanitary certificate for live plants.

For the step-by-step paperwork, see our CITES agarwood permit guide.

After 2004: How the Rules Kept Moving

The 2004 listing was a beginning, not an end. Annotation #14 later exempted some finished, retail-packaged products, and CITES has kept agarwood on its agenda at later meetings.

National rules move too. In 2024 India's annual export quota for cultivated agarwood chips and powder rose from 25,000 kg to 151,080 kg, and for oil from 1,500 kg to 7,050 kg.^[4] History, in other words, is still being written.

Research reviews confirm how much the supply side has changed. Azren and colleagues describe induction technology spreading across cultivated Aquilaria in several Asian countries, turning a wild harvest into a farmed crop.^[5]

Our own operation is part of that shift. AgarwoodTown was founded in 2014 in Guan Zhu Town, Dian Bai District, Maoming, and we inoculate our own 100+ mu plantation of Aquilaria sinensis. We also work with more than 100 contracted plantation farmers.

We sell plantation material only, and founder Wang Jianyu grades it on our internal D, C, B, A and AAA scale, with Kynam offered by allocation. That scale is ours, not an ISO or CITES standard. For the species side of the story, our guide to the main Aquilaria species compares sinensis with malaccensis, crassna and others.

Plantations also sell the starting point itself. Growers who want to join the trade can buy Aquilaria sinensis seedlings from $15 per plant with a 10-plant MOQ, shipped with a phytosanitary certificate.

History is not only background for a buyer. It explains why grades exist, why origin claims matter, and why paperwork travels with every carton.

For example, a Gulf distributor asking for "Hindi" or "Cambodi" profiles is using categories that merchants built over centuries. Similarly, a Japanese incense maker who insists on fine, consistent powder is continuing a kōdō standard, while a CITES permit is the modern answer to the over-harvesting that history recorded.

We see the same pattern every week on the grading table. Buyers still pay for scent, resin and trust in the source, exactly as merchants did in Guangzhou a thousand years ago.