Incense in The Wind: Rasbihari Lal & Sons

Thursday, 12 June 2025

Rasbihari Lal & Sons

Rasbihari Lal & Sons is a Hindu shop in Vrindavan, the birthplace of Krishna. The business was founded in 1978, and sells a range of Krishna related products as well as incense, predominantly unbranded incense which is what we know as Rasbihari Lal incense, which appears to only be sold outside of India by Padma Store, though can be bought directly from the online website Rasbihari Lal. Prices are around $5-$17 (£4-£15) with shipping starting at around $30, then - unfortunately and somewhat off-puttingly - increasing rather than decreasing when you increase the order (when it went up to $57 for around 10 items, I decided not to proceed!). Padma Store sells much of the same incense (though not the complete range, which appears to include several different makers) at around the same price, and with lower shipping costs.

The shop in Loi Bazar Vrindavan

Rasbihari Lal is a shop, not an incense house, and appear to sell incense made by several different incense houses. This is one of many incense outlets in Vrindavan. Just Dial give details on well over a hundred. Vrindavan Bazaar (Hare Krsna Exports LLC, House No. 351, Chaitanya Vihar, Vrindavan); and Hare Krishna Das (Hare Krishna Emporium, Loi Bazaar, Vrindavan) are two I've bought from, and who offer excellent value for money. It is considered that one of the suppliers is Haridas Madhavdas Sugandhi (HMS ) in Pune, though it could be any other of a number of white label incense houses in Pune or Mumbai, or other places in India. The similarity with HMS is mainly the occasional use of vanillin, but that is not exclusive to HMS. Musk ketone, coumarin, piperonal, civet, and vanillin are popular scent crystals used by artisanal incense houses in India to be included in the mix, usually on the outside of the stick - generally in the melnoorva powder, which, because of their excellent diffusion and scent character, give instant appeal. So we don't know for definite who makes the incense for Rasbihari Lal, but an incense house in Pune does seem to be favourite.

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