The Scent That Predates the Bottle
The oldest ittar recipes in the subcontinent don't come from perfumers. They come from physicians. The Charaka Samhita lists aromatic preparations not as luxury but as medicine, rose to cool the blood, sandalwood to calm the mind, vetiver to draw heat from the body in summer. The separation between fragrance and healing didn't exist. A scent was a diagnosis before it was a desire.
