Sandalwood, tagara, blue lotus or jasmine: among these fragrances, the fragrance of virtue is supreme.

The verse enumerates four precious fragrances in ancient India: candana (sandalwood, the ritual perfume par excellence), tagara (aromatic plant, possibly Valeriana wallichii), uppala (blue lotus, Nymphaea caerulea), and vassikī (jasmine, Jasminum sambac). These are the best fragrances the physical world can offer.

Sīlagandho anuttaro — the fragrance of virtue is supreme. Anuttaro means literally “without superior,” unsurpassable, incomparable. Virtue (sīla) has a fragrance no physical perfume can equal because it does not degrade with time, does not disperse with adverse wind, and needs no costly external sources.

Sīla is the first of the three pillars of Buddhist training: virtue, concentration (samādhi), and wisdom (paññā). Without sīla as foundation, the edifice of practice has no basis. The olfactory metaphor is particularly apt: the perfume of virtue is something others perceive before one explains it.

In yoga, the analogy is with tapas, svādhyāya, and Īśvarapraṇidhāna of Patañjali’s Kriyā Yoga. Purified discipline produces a brilliance (tejas) that is the yogic equivalent of this moral fragrance. It is not arrogance but the natural expression of genuine practice.