Our Philosophy

 

A Living Preservation

For us, preservation does not simply mean keeping a tradition alive only in our memory, or admiring it after it has disappeared from the lives of the people who once practiced it.

A tradition is better preserved by practicing the age-old process in making something — by keeping it alive through the touch of the hands, the harvest from the fields, the natural rhythm of the craft, and the recognition of the very people who continue to live it every day.

This is what we mean by Living Preservation.

And this is how we have grown our sense of preservation by distilling essential oils through traditional wisdom — to now extracting carrier oils through a 2000-year-old tradition of stone-pressed, bull-driven mills at our sangha farm.

Essence Of Timelessness

 

The survival of any ancient craft in a modern era is a wonder in itself.

 

The slow and mindful craft of stone-pressed, bull-driven oil making was once an integral part of ancient South Indian culture. Earlier historic records trace it as far back as 300 BCE in Sangam literature, and later in the early 12th century, the bull-driven mill was depicted by carving it among the stone sculptures at the Airavatesvara Temple in Dharasuram, Tamil Nadu.

 

The oils extracted using stone-pressed, bull-driven mills lit the corridors of temples on sacred occasions throughout the Chola and Pandya Kingdoms.

Their nutrient-rich, cold-pressed nature made them highly valued in trade with the Roman Empire. And in the recent excavations at Keeladi, it was found that the oils produced from such stone-pressed mills were stored in terracotta jars by the ancient people.

Such was the rich and beautiful tapestry of facts and stories woven around these bull-driven, stone-pressed mills across the ages that by the early 20th century, nearly every modest household in Tamil Nadu possessed one for both culinary and topical use.

Yet, during the same time when something like industrialisation was a boon for every modern civilization on earth, it also erased such traditional practices in favor of the mechanised mills.

Why Preservation Matters

 

High-speed rotary machines replaced the ancient wisdom behind the slow extraction of oil. Steel expellers replaced the stone mill and the traditional vaigai wood used in the oil pressing process. Electricity drove mechanised mills at high RPM — no longer needing the bulls that once moved in harmony with nature's rhythm.

The heat from intense friction stripped the oils of their essential vitamins and micro-nutrients. They were then diluted with paraffin oil and spiked with artificial fragrances to be sold as a low-price commodity.

 

The traditional mills — which required effort, care and small batch extraction, and were traditionally preferred for a newborn infant massage — couldn't survive being a market commodity. The practitioners of this ancient craft, searching for better prospects, left their homes for the cities. And slowly, the stone-pressed mills began to disappear from the small towns with them as well.

It was amidst these circumstances that we chose to restore and revive the tradition of the ancestors with the very people who have preserved this ancient craft, just as it was back then. We have worked to sustain them as part of our sangha, by building a better ecosystem of care and fair facilitation — ensuring that this craft continues from the past to the present, and survives into the future for generations yet to come.

A Philosophy of Preservation

 

Today, we honour the wisdom and superior craftsmanship of the ancestors, and the rich cultural heritage of Southern India by keeping this tradition alive at our sangha farms.

 

This is the essence behind our philosophy of preservation: to grow our Sangha, so that no story — alive and being lived through its traditions — ever becomes a tale of forgotten memory about their ancestors.