from precious to polluting: tracing the history of camphor in hinduism

Recently some Hindu temples stopped using camphor lamps because of the soot and pollution they produce. In this article I explore this contemporary problem, tracing how a network of plants, geography, physico-chemical qualities, traders, perfumers, celluloid factories, and ancient scriptures came together to construct camphor, first as a precious perfume, and later as a polluting chemical. In the medieval period, rare camphor was imported from Southeast Asia and camphor lamps would have been extremely luxurious. In religious texts that discuss lamp fuels we see the prestige of exotic, costly camphor as a material associated with the wealthy and powerful. At this time camphor was only available to the cosmopolitan elite, including gods in temples, for whom it was a necessary, luxurious adornment. As a result of the early plastics industry, in the twentieth-century camphor was synthesized and became far cheaper. What was once an exotic luxury is now a cheap commodity, yet camphor remains pungent with the associations of religious (though no longer elite) traditions. Ubiquitous "unnatural" camphor was eventually dropped from certain rituals because of new concepts of pollution and health. Changes in trade and technology restricted and expanded access to camphor, and fluctuations in the exclusivity of this aromatic material altered its power to articulate political and religious charisma, and to signify tradition and orthodoxy. The consequent rejection of, or nostalgic attachment to, camphor has in turn had social, political, economic, and environmental repercussions.