Paste: The powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky and incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small cakes. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called Bukhoor or Bakhoor, is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, using this method.[6]
Direct burning
Direct burning incense also called combustible incense,[3] , generally requires little preparation prior to its use. When lit directly by a flame (hence the appellation) and then fanned out, the glowing ember on the incense will continue to smolder and burn away the rest of the incense without continued application of heat or flame from an outside source. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odorless binder.[1] The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types of direct burning incense are commonly encountered, though the material itself can take virtually any form, according to expediency or whimsy:
- Coil: Shaped into a coil, the incense is able to burn for an extended period; from hours to days.
- Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively fast. Cone incense containing mugwort are used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion treatment.
- Cored stick: This form of stick incense has a supporting core of bamboo. Higher quality varieties of this form have fragrant sandalwood cores. The core is coated by a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. This type of incense is commonly produced by the Indians and the Chinese. When used for worship in Chinese folk religion, cored incensed sticks are sometimes known as Joss sticks.
- Solid stick: This stick incense has no supporting core and is completely made of incense material. Easily broken into pieces, it allows one to determine the specific amount of incense they wish to burn. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.
- Dipped or Hand-dipped: This form simply dips Incense Blanks in any kind of essential or fragrance oil. It was made popular in American Flea markets by vendors who wanted their own style.
Direct burning incense of these forms is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material.
With extruded or pressed incense using water soluable binders like makko （抹香・末香.[1] small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.
Coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. The supporting material, either thin bamboo or Sandalwood slivers, are soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The sticks are evenly separated then dipped into a tray of incense powder, consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant based binder. In India a resin based binder called Jigit is used. In Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries a bark based powder called Laha or Dar is used. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. incense sticks that are burned in temples of Chinese folk religion produced in this fashion can have a thickness between 1 to 2 cm.
Traditional methods
Indian incense
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Indian incense can be divided into two categories: masala and charcoal. Masala incenses are made of dry ingredients, while charcoal incenses contain liquid scents. Masala incenses have several subgroups.
Masala
Masālā is a word in Hindi (and other Indian languages) meaning "spice mixture". It is commonly used when referring to curries or other food dishes. Masala incenses are made by blending several solid scented ingredients into a paste and then rolling that paste onto a bamboo core stick. These incenses usually contain little or no liquid scents (which can evaporate or diminish over time).
Dubars are a sub-group of masala incense. They often contain ingredients entirely unfamiliar in the West and contain very complex scents. They are usually very slow-burning and are quite sweet and spicy in scent. They contain both solid and liquid perfumes in a binder which never quite dries out, making the incense sticks soft to the touch.
Champas are a sub-group of durbars. They contain a natural ingredient indigenous to India called "halmaddi". Halmaddi is a grey semi-liquid resin taken from the Ailanthus Malabarica tree. It smells like the flowers of the plumeria tree. Plumeria flowers are known as champa flowers in India, hence the name of the incense group. Halmaddi is hygroscopic which means it absorbs moisture from the air. This can cause champa incenses to have a wet feeling to them. Nag Champa is probably the most famous incense of the champa group.
Dhoops are another masala sub-group. They are an extruded incense, lacking a core bamboo stick. Many dhoops have very concentrated scents and put out a lot of smoke when burned. The most well-known dhoop is probably Chandan Dhoop. It contains a high percentage of Sandalwood.
Charcoal
Charcoal incenses are made by dipping an unscented "blank" (non-perfume stick) into a mixture of perfumes and/or essential oils. These blanks usually contain a binding resin (sometimes sandalwood) that holds the sticks' ingredients together. Most charcoal incenses are black in color.
In the Temple in Jerusalem
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The Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Tibetan incense
Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from the familiar such as cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to the unfamiliar such as kusum flower, ashvagandha, or sahi jeera.
Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.
Japanese incense
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Agarwood （沈香 Jinkō） and Sandalwood （白檀 Byakudan） are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "Jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.
Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara （伽羅）. Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.
Uses of incense
Incense, being an article familiar to humanity since the dawn of civilization, has meant different things to the different peoples who have come to use it. Given the wide diversity of such peoples and their practices, it would be impossible to form an all-inclusive list of the ways in which incense has come to be used, since the methods and purposes of employment are as diverse and nuanced as those who have employed it.
Practical use of incense
Mosquito-repellent used in China, India, and Japan are usually manufactured in coil form and burned in a similar manner as incense
Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other, less desirable odors. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. Another example of this use, as well as of religious use is the Botafumeiro which, according to tradition, was installed to hide the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.
The regular burning of direct combustion incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve and captivate several of the senses. [7]
Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other aggravating, distracting or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner.
Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors, and do not want the scent to linger.
Aesthetic use of incense
Incense can be, like art for the eyes, music for the ears, or fine cuisine for the palate, an indulgence for the sense of smell. Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the forgoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the refined sensory experience. This use is perhaps best exemplified in the kōdō (香道, kōdō?), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formalised setting.
Religious use of incense
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Use of incense in religion is prevalent in many cultures and may have their roots in the practical and aesthetic uses considering that many religions with not much else in common all use incense. One common motif is of incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity.
Incense and health
Research into the effects of incense burning and health are unclear at this time.
Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke. [8]
A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant. [9]
In contrast, a study by several Asian Cancer Research Centers showed: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified the findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."[10]
See also
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Citations
External links
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