Lignum Santalinum album vel citrinum; Sandal-wood; F. Bois de Santal citrin; G. Weisses oder Gelbes Sandelholz.
Botanical Origin—Santalum album[2243] L., a small tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with a trunk 18 to 35 inches in girth, a native of the mountainous parts of the Indian peninsula, but especially of Mysore and parts of Coimbatore and North Canara, in the Madras Presidency; it grows in dry and open places, often in hedge-rows, not in forests. The same tree is also found in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, notably of Sumba (otherwise called Chandane or Sandal-wood Island), and Timur.
In later times, sandal-wood has been extensively collected in the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, where its existence was first pointed out about the year 1778, from Santalum Freycinetianum Gaud. and S. pyrularium A. Gray;[2244] in the Viti or Fiji Islands from S. Yasi Seem.; in New Caledonia from S. austro-caledonicum, Vieill;[2245] and in Western Australia from Fusanus spicatus Br. (Santalum spicatum DC., S. cygnorum Miq.).[2246] The mother plants of Japanese and West Indian sandal-wood are not known to us.
In India the sandal-wood tree is protected by Government, and is the source of a profitable commerce. In other countries it has been left to itself, and has usually been extirpated, at least from all accessible places, within a few years of its discovery.
History—Sandal-wood, the Sanskrit name for which, Chandana, has passed into many of the languages of India, is mentioned in the Nirukta or writings of Yaska, the oldest Vedic commentary extant, written not later than the 5th century b.c. The wood is also referred to in the ancient Sanskrit epic poems, the Rāmāyana and Mahabharata, parts of which may be of nearly as early date.
The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about the middle of the 1st century, enumerates sandal-wood (Ξύλα σαγαλίνα) among the Indian commodities imported into Omana in the Persian Gulf.[2247]
The Τζανδάνα mentioned towards the middle of the 6th century by Cosmas Indicopleustes,[2248] as brought to Taprobane (Ceylon) from China and other emporia, was probably the wood under consideration. In Ceylon its essential oil was used as early as the 9th century in embalming the corpses of the princes.
Sandal-wood is named by Masudi[2249] as one of the costly aromatics of the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.[2250]
In the 11th century sandal-wood was found among the treasures of the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511.
Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention Sandalum.[2251] Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about the same period, was acquainted with white, yellow, and red sandal-wood.[2252] All three kinds of sandal-wood also occur in a list of drugs[2253] in use at Frankfort, circa a.d. 1450; and in the Compendium Aromatariorum of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to be kept by the Italian apothecary,—“Sandali trium generum, scilicet albi, rubii et citrini.”