Indian agarwood: Assam and Northeast India

India's agarwood industry is concentrated in Assam and the wider northeast, where Aquilaria malaccensis has been grown around family homes for generations. Assam's agarwood is often called Assamese or Hindi oud in the perfume trade, and it is widely regarded by oud enthusiasts as having a distinctive, often described as animalic or barnyard character, though that is a matter of taste and distillation style rather than a fixed property of the region.

India is also where international regulation of agarwood started. This guide covers the species, the homegarden model, India's CITES history and what is documented about the trade today. Agarwood's place in devotional practice is covered separately in agarwood in Hindu tradition.

Agar and sanchi: what Assam calls the tree

In Assam the tree and its resinous wood are usually called agar, which shares its root with the Sanskrit aguru. The tree is also known as sanchi, a name tied to one of Assam's best known traditions: the bark of the sanchi tree was historically processed into sanchipat, the material on which many old Assamese manuscripts were written. The agarwood trade itself grew around the resinous heartwood rather than the bark.

Two native species: A. malaccensis and A. khasiana

Aquilaria malaccensis is the species behind almost all Indian agarwood. Its natural range runs from northeast India and Bangladesh through Southeast Asia to Indonesia and the Philippines, which is why the same species also appears in the Malaysian and Indonesian guides in this hub.

A second native species has recently gained attention. Aquilaria khasiana was long known only from a few sites in the East Khasi Hills of Meghalaya, where surveys found nine trees in 2016 and only five by 2023 to 2024. Researchers have since recorded more than 210 mature trees in Jeypore Reserve Forest in Assam, confirming the identification through plant morphology and DNA barcoding and sequencing the species' complete chloroplast genome for the first time, in a study reported in Scientific Reports. The species is still regarded as critically endangered, and it plays no meaningful part in the trade.

Where CITES regulation of agarwood began

Assam's species holds a particular place in agarwood's legal history. Following a proposal by India, Aquilaria malaccensis was listed in CITES Appendix II with effect from 16 February 1995, the first agarwood species to come under international trade control. Every other Aquilaria species and the whole Gyrinops genus followed at the 2004 conference.

India's own trade was later reviewed under CITES. In 2024 India was removed from the CITES Review of Significant Trade for A. malaccensis, with export quotas set at 151,080 kg of chips and 7,050 kg of oil from plantation sources, and a quota of zero for wild material. Quota figures can change, so check the current CITES quota list for exact numbers. The wider framework is covered in agarwood and CITES explained.

Homegarden agar: how most Assam agarwood is grown

Much of Assam's agarwood is not grown in large plantations at all. It grows in homegardens, the mixed plots around rural houses where agar trees share space with tea and other crops. Studies in Upper Assam, particularly Golaghat, Jorhat and Sivasagar districts, document families growing anywhere from about ten to 500 agar trees and passing down practical methods for raising seedlings, intercropping and managing the trees.

For many households agar is a long-term savings crop. A study of 135 homegardens in Golaghat and Jorhat found that homegarden products, agar and tea among them, supplied a mean of about 14 percent of annual family income, and researchers point to agar's low input needs as part of its appeal. Assam has also made small-scale growing easier: since 2019, plantations under five hectares no longer need a permit.

Hojai and the processing trade

The town of Hojai, in central Assam, is widely described in trade reporting as the centre of India's agarwood processing, with many small distilleries producing oil and dealers handling chips and powder. Its long association with the trade also makes it a place where origin and quality claims vary widely, so a "Hojai" or "Assam" label is a starting point for questions rather than an answer.

From Vulnerable to Critically Endangered

The IUCN Red List assessed Aquilaria malaccensis as Vulnerable in 1998 and reassessed it as Critically Endangered in 2018, citing a decline of more than 80 percent over three generations. In Assam the species is reported to be close to extinct in the wild, which is why the homegarden and plantation model now carries effectively all of India's legal supply.

Indian agarwood in the market today

For buyers, Assam-origin agarwood is essentially a cultivated product today. That makes the seller's documentation more useful than the regional name. Ask where the wood was grown, whether it was homegarden or plantation material, and how the oil was distilled. Those answers say more than "Hindi" or "Assamese" on a label. See questions to ask before you buy oud.