Composite vs Harmonized Incense: Key Differences & Chinese Tradition

Harmonized Incense：

At the heart of traditional Chinese incense craftsmanship lies the ancient practice of harmonized scent creation—an intricate art that blends premium natural ingredients according to the revered Monarch-Minister-Assistant-Guide formulation principle.

The traditional Chinese incense-making process is formed under the guidance of traditional Chinese cultural thinking, after thousands of years of continuous practice and continuous improvement. Harmonized Incense is not simply the addition of incense and medicine, but more importantly, the incense and people and the incense, the incense and the timing and the harmony between the incense and medicine, as well as the incense and the incense and those who use the incense and the harmony.

And incense process has a systematic law, strict law, must be based on the five elements of the attributes of the incense, so that the medicinal properties of the incense to generate each other, guide the smooth system inverse. Many times it is necessary to group and combine the incense first, some also need to go through the cellar, and then finally synthesized in the desired order. History of many famous incense, and incense and the time there are strict requirements, that is, the ancients said the time and incense. Some of the whole process of incense production takes dozens of days to complete.

Such incense, after a long period of incense and medicine mutual transportation and fusion, has formed an orderly whole, must have a better quality, there will be a unique effect.

Fragrance is a special item, is to nourish the heart and nature of the elegant things, so many generations have emphasized the meditation incense, and few words about the effect. But this is not to say that it has no effect, but in order to prevent people from sticking to one point, the anti-impediment to the incense in the nature of the harmony and the overall maintenance of the human body.

Classification of Fragrance Materials

The world of incense is vast, but we can categorize all kinds of incense materials in order to recognize them more clearly:

A. Floral: Rose, Jasmine, Orange blossom, etc.

B. the spicy category: fennel, Clove, Chen Pi, etc.

C. Fresh scents: Cypress, Lemon, Rosemary, Peppermint, etc.

D. Chinese herbs: Radix Angelicae, Ligusticum Wakkichii, Sinensis, etc.

E. Wood: Alosewood, Sandalwood, RosewoodHeartWood, etc.

F. Resins: Benzoin, Olibanum, Amber, etc.

G. Animal: Ambergris, Muskiness, Civet Incense,Turbo Operculum, and more.

Uses of Harmonized Incense：

After these incense materials are harmonized, they are used in a few ways:
Wear incense, burn incense, smoke incense.
The so-called wear incense, is used to wear incense. In addition to the single product of vanilla, incense wood, but also includes incense beads, incense cards; burning incense is used to burn incense, including seal incense, incense, disk incense, tower incense, inverted flow incense, and so on. Smoked incense is the incense used to isolate the fire. In and incense includes incense pills, incense cakes, incense tablets and so on.

To harmonize incense is to combine all kinds of incense materials in order to realize their “use”.

According to the purpose and use of incense, it is categorized into six main types of incense: Dharma and the Myriad Fragrance, Flower Fragrance, Incense for Smoking and Wearing, Incense for Painting and Transferring, Incense for the Mouth, and Incense for the Seal Seal.

The “Dharma and the many wonderful incenses” referred to here refers to various skillful methods of harmonizing incense. There are many records of these methods in the classics. Generally, from the name of the incense, you can know their location and use. For example, “incense in the palace,” “incense in the tent,” “incense in the government office,” by seeing these names, we can roughly know what occasions they are suitable for use.

The flower fragrance is the method of simulating the fragrance of various flowers; the incense of smoking and wearing is the incense worn on the body or smoked clothes; the incense of applying and transmitting refers to the powder and paste of incense; the incense of mouth is the incense pill and tea that is taken; and the incense of seal-printing is also known as the final incense, which is the powder that is grounded from a single or several kinds of incenses, like the powder that is used to make the seal-printing of the incense that we see in the ordinary world.

In fact, harmonizing with incense is something that is complicated to say the least, and extremely simple to say the least, for modern people.

 The “complexity” of Harmonized Incense

Let’s start with “complexity”. If we want to master the traditional meaning of “Harmonized Incense”, the preparation of incense is extremely complicated. The first step in the preparation of incense is to make it pure. One is to make the incense pure, the second is to do cutting, crushing treatment. Picking, plucking, kneading, scraping, sieving, drying; cutting, crushing, bruising, pounding. Remove excess water, remove impurities, remove spoiled parts, remove non-medicinal parts, so that the size of the incense material to meet the requirements of reprocessing.

There are a lot of incense only after “repair system” is not enough, but also need to “water system” or “fire system”. The so-called “water system”, is water or other liquids to the incense to the process of concocting, including soaking, steaming, boiling, water flying, etc.; and “fire system” is the drug through the fire concoction, such as frying, calcination, simmering, baking, etc..

Let’s take an example, for example, the concoction of sandalwood. In the concoction of sandalwood, the first need to repair the system, the need for large pieces of sandalwood for cutting, and then small pieces of sandalwood water system, soaked in tea, seven days after taking out, shade dry, shade dry after the fire system, shade dry sandalwood frying, so that the sandalwood produced in order to go to its dryness, the aroma will be more mellow and mellow.

Incense concoction is very strict, “less than the efficacy of the difficult to find, too much is the nature of the flavor of the anti-loss.” Whether the preparation is appropriate, directly affects the quality of incense. This process is particularly complex.

And then say a few words about the composition of incense.

Incense materials, too, are Chinese medicines. They have their own four flavors and five properties, attributed to the pharmacology. To be a good and incense, and to make a good incense, you must understand the main medicinal properties of incense and meridian knowledge, can not be arbitrary. Otherwise, you can’t benefit others’ incense.

|The “simplicity” of incense harmonization

Next, let’s talk about the simplicity of harmonization.

First of all, it’s much easier to find all the herbs used in Waka now than it was in ancient times. There are many channels and easy transportation. There are even some responsible manufacturers who have come up with safe, concocted sets of herbs for use in Waka.

Secondly, we can draw on the incense formulas in the Tao of incense canonical books. These incense formulas are time-tested and safe. As long as we follow the formulas and dosages on them, we can start to harmonize the incense at all.

“Harmonized Incense” or ‘Composite Incense’?

The word “harmony” means “correspondence” in Shuowen and “harmonization” in Guangya. “To neutralize and harmonize” is the core of traditional Chinese culture, and so is traditional Chinese incense. Southern Song Fan Ye “and incense square” and other incense monographs use the term “and incense”. Chinese traditional incense in the Han Dynasty that formed the theory, method, formula, medicine complete, more mature system. And incense is not simply incense and medicine “mixing”, more importantly, is the “and” of the medicinal properties, some of the synergistic effect of incense to enhance the original efficacy, some of the incense can inhibit the other some of the bias of the incense, and the process of incense and to comply with the ancient law, as well as choose the time, choose the place, and the heart of the incense maker into which the incense maker. Incense maker’s heart into it, to achieve “no reference to the three talents and transport” requirements, and ultimately produce “to the neutral” of the incense, in order to achieve the effect of letting people use incense yin and yang and qi and blood and viscera and life and life, so the traditional Chinese incense is known as the “and incense”.

“Composite”, ‘Shuowen’ explains as ‘close the mouth also’, meaning closed, derived from the gathering, set, is a verb, such as ”the method of combining incense” The verb is “to gather and collect incense”, as in “the method of combining incense” and “to combine all the incense”. Therefore, He Xiang and He Xiang are two different levels with different meanings.