Karnataka state incense, made with government-supplied sandalwood from the forests of Mysore.

Cauvery is not a private incense house, it is the retail face of the Karnataka State Handicrafts Development Corporation, a government undertaking established in 1964 with a remit to preserve and sustain traditional craft skills across the state. The incenses in this collection come from within that system — made through small workshops and cottage producers supplied with sandalwood through official state depots in Mysore, Shivamogga, and Dharwad where the wood is held and distributed at regulated rates.

The Karnataka Forest Department supplies sandalwood directly to KSHDC — which means the chain from forest to finished stick is unusually short and unusually traceable.

Raw materials are provided to artisans at subsidised rates, and the corporation runs training programmes to keep traditional skills alive across generations. There is also a two-year craftsmanship course — the Gurukula — run specifically to bring younger makers into the tradition.

Karnataka has been the historical heartland of Indian sandalwood for centuries — the state is known as gandhadagudi, the land of sandalwood— and these incenses reflect that inheritance directly. They are made primarily for domestic use, sold through Cauvery's own shops to local customers as much as visitors.

Differences emerge across this carefully chosen range of handrolled varieties: some sticks are soft and powdery, others creamy and rounded, others drier and more precisely defined. A Loban blend sits alongside them — resinous and a little different, but still carrying sandalwood as its thread which is unusual and makes what could be a functional resin incense into something more appealing to burn.

Taken together, they form a study in a single material across a number of moods — emerging from a source that has been producing this wood for a very long time.