PERFUME (Attar) INDUSTRY IN KANNAUJ While history hangs heavy in every corner, the present is no less interesting in Kannauj. It has a thriving flavor and fragrance industry. Many interesting stories abound about how Kannauj came to occupy the center of this industry. Harsha Vardhan himself was known to use perfumes and fragrant and ointment. He encouraged and patronized the development of fragrances. He also gifted fragrant material to outsiders who visited him. That is how Kannauj's reputation as a center of perfumery spread far and wide. The traditional Deg-Bhapka method of attar making practiced even today, bears striking resemblance to the ancient distillation equipment at Taxila. Copper stills and receivers are used. Great quantities of flowers or herbs are heated and the vapours condensed and absorbed into a fixative which is sandalwood oil. A large number of skilled workers are engaged in attar making. They are adept in knowing exactly when to step up the heat by inserting an extra wooden log in the furnace, or when to arrest the distillation by simply wrapping a wet cloth around the still. Methods used are crude but effective. The attar when ready is poured into circular camel leather bottles for sedimentation and removal of moisture. Small baked clay teacups are used as raw material to extract the delicate aroma that emerges when rainwater falls on sun-parched soil. It is one of those elusive fragrances that defies all description. One simply has to experience it. There are a few households engaged in producing special medicinal attar called Hina. Each family has its own secret recipe, which they guard zealously. There are experts called "gandhis" whose job is to ascertain the quality and pedigree of hina for the buyers. This they are able to do with a fair degree of accuracy using only their nostrils and olfactory faculty. Apart from its uses in the perfume and cosmetic industry, the flavors of rose, kewra and khus are used in sweetmeats, sherbets, Chewing tobacco, Gutkha & snuff.. Kannauj grows a number of flowers. It then bears a strong resemblance to Grasse near Caines of France where fields of flowers roll out for miles. Interestingly, Kannauj also accounts for 75 percent of the sandalwood oil production of India. But sandalwood itself is brought all the way from South India incurring heavy transportation costs. Nobody seems to know why sandalwood could not be produced in Kannauj itself.