The History of Attar: 3,000 Years of Botanical Distillation
Derived from the Persian-Arabic 'Itr' (meaning fragrance) and celebrated across three millennia of Indian civilizational history, natural Attar is humanity's most venerable art of pure, alcohol-free perfumery—capturing the living soul of fresh blossoms, sacred woods, and wet earth.
Sunlight cutting through the aromatic vapor of hand-hammered copper stills, an unbroken art of hydrodistillation.
Distilled with Passion
Tayeb Haroon
“We believe that true fragrance is a living heritage that connects the purity of raw botanical nature with profound human emotions, tradition, and timeless memory.”
Tayeb Haroon
Founder & Managing Leader, India Sales Corporation
Tayeb Haroon is a renowned industrialist and social leader known for contributions to industry, employment generation, and public welfare. With years of experience in business leadership, he has played a key role in economic development and community upliftment.
The Manufacturing Unit
Situated within the prestigious MEPZ Special Economic Zone in Chennai, our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility blends ancestral distillation wisdom with modern export-grade precision. Every fragrance compound leaves our unit as a testament to uncompromising quality.
Where three decades of fragrance mastery meet international export standards.
Compound Blending
Raw Material Storage
Quality Control Lab
Filling & Packaging
Distillation Room
Export Dispatch
Campus Lane
Facility Yard
From the Ancient Silk Road to the Royal Courts of India
Unlike Western commercial perfumery created in laboratories with 80% to 90% synthetic alcohol, authentic Indian Attar is a natural botanical extract matured slowly in pure sandalwood oil, interacting organically with the wearer's skin chemistry.
Ancient Origins & The Legendary Silk Road
Alcohol-free distillation originated in ancient India and Egypt over 3,000 years ago. Ancient Ayurvedic classics such as the Charaka Samhita and Varahamihira's 6th-century treatise Bṛhat Saṃhitā detailed complex recipes for sacred perfumed waters, oils, and temple incense powders.
Carried across camel caravans on the historic Silk Road and maritime trade routes through the Indian Ocean, Indian attars were coveted as precious luxury treasures—presented as diplomatic gifts to pharaohs, Persian monarchs, and Arabian royalty.
The Deg & Bhapka Technique: Distilling with Fire, Water & Earth
The traditional hydrodistillation process is practiced today exactly as it was hundreds of years ago. Master distillers (Dighas) place fresh hand-picked blossoms into large copper cauldrons called deg, filled with fresh well water and sealed hermetically with clay and cotton bandages.
Beneath the deg, carefully monitored wood fires produce fragrant steam that travels through hollow bamboo pipes (chonga) into a copper receiver (bhapka) submerged in a cooling water bath. Inside the bhapka lies pure aged Indian Sandalwood oil, absorbing the delicate botanical molecules drop by drop for up to ten consecutive cycles.
Mughal Royalty & The Legend of Rooh Gulab
Attar reached its imperial zenith during the Mughal era. Emperor Akbar established a dedicated imperial perfume atelier known as the Khushbu Khana, recorded by historian Abul Fazl in the Ain-i-Akbari, combining agarwood (oud), ambergris, musk, and sandalwood for courtly rituals.
Legend holds that Empress Nur Jahan discovered Rooh Gulab (pure rose attar) while walking in her palace gardens, noticing shimmering fragrant oily drops floating upon her warm rose-petal bath. Later, during the reign of Shah Jahan, the legendary Shamama was perfected—a secret recipe blending over 40 Himalayan herbs, roots, and spices.
In Awadh (Lucknow), the Nawabs engineered continuous scented fountains of attar in their palace courtyards to perfume the night breezes.
The Seasonal Philosophy: Warm & Cool Attars
In classical Indian tradition, fragrances are chosen not merely for aesthetic pleasure, but for their therapeutic effect on mind and body temperaments:
Warm & Enveloping
Musk, Amber, Kesar (Saffron), and Oud: Rich, resinous, and warm notes that provide comforting inner energy and raise vitality during cold winter months.
Cooling & Serene
Rose (Gulab), Mogra (Jasmine), Khus (Vetiver), and Kewra: Fresh, leafy, aquatic florals that naturally cool the pulse points and soothe the mind under blazing summer heat.
“Unlike modern commercial perfumes diluted with eighty percent alcohol that evaporate into the air, authentic Indian Attar is a pure living oil. It bonds intimately with the warmth of your skin, revealing its secrets hour after hour.”
A Living Tradition Preserved by India Sales Corporation
A Chennai house of fragrance, trading with the world since 1993.
Manufacturers, Exporters & Importers of Perfumes, Indian Attars & Agarbathies. Headquartered within the special economic zone of MEPZ SEZ Chennai, we bridge centuries of Indian distillation mastery with international export standards.
1993
19 & 20, Phase II, MEPZ – SEZ, Chennai – 600045, Tamil Nadu, India
Manufacturing · Export · Import · Custom Compound Blending
Cosmetics · Essential Oils · Incense
Mumbai · Delhi · Lucknow · UAE · KSA · Africa
200+ skilled personnel