Tibetan Handmade Incense: Natural Aromatherapy for Purify & Calm
Tibetan incense is a sacred object with a history of more than 1,000 years, from the distant past all the way to the present. Wherever you go, you can feel its presence, whether it is on the monastery temple or ordinary people’s homes, and even the endless flow of the transmigration road, are diffused with a strong herbal fragrance. Accompanied by the rise of cigarettes, people’s blessings and wishes to the distant sky.
Tibetan incense is the abbreviation of traditional incense used in Tibetan area and Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan incense was created around the Tang Dynasty, Princess Wencheng went to Tibet and brought with her Buddha statues, Buddhist scriptures, incense, incense, etc. Later, the Tibetan people adjusted the incense according to the local living customs, culture, climate, utility, needs and other characteristics, and achieved a more suitable aroma for the people of Tibet, efficacy and so on.
Tibetan incense was mainly taken from the local aromatic plants, high-grade incense should be added agarwood tree (Aquilaria agallocha), sandalwood, borneol, as well as pangolin, Turbo Operculum. High-grade religious incense should also add gold, silver, jewelry and so on. The real Tibetan incense in the materials and ingredients is very strict, in the use of more than a thousand years in the process, by constantly references, revisions, perfect, has formed a complete set of incense and incense program, and is passed down from generation to generation form of inheritance. Even different sects, and even some large temples, will have their own unique formula, unique effect of incense.
The basic efficacy of Tibetan incense is roughly the same as that of Chinese incense, but unlike the Chinese, who are mainly living, Tibetans use incense mainly in temples and at home to make offerings. Because of the Tibetan incense often use some animal components of the drug, so in history is also called “meat incense”, while the Chinese incense is relatively called “vegetarian incense”. Due to the Tibetan incense in the process of organizing the full consideration of the needs of the people in the alpine region, pangolin, tortoise shell and other components are mainly used to warm the blood, blood, promote blood circulation, therefore, Tibetan incense in some sense is not suitable for inland China, especially not suitable for use in the southern region.
Composition and efficacy of Tibetan incense
Traditional production of Tibetan incense raw materials, generally to cypress trunk or elm trunk as the main material, and then agarwood, sandalwood, cloves, angelica, Aucklandia Lappa，Cinnamon, Myrrh, sweet incense, Calamus and safflower and other more than 20 kinds of natural spices and medicinal herbs according to the appropriate proportion of the main material with the rubbing and become. It does not contain any chemical spices, and the proportion of each ingredient and the processing method are strictly defined.
Tibetan incense is a variety of valuable Chinese herbs, physically mixed and formulated in proportion to its great medicinal value. Its medicinal principle is detoxification, sterilization, anti-infection, anti-virus, can kill pathogenic microorganisms in the air, purify the air and prevent the spread of viruses. Indoors burning Tibetan incense, its aroma dispersion, walk through the muscle joints, not only can purify the air, moisturize the skin, but also enhance the ability to resist disease, but also to prevent joint pain, skin conditioning, relieve mental tension, reduce neurological headaches, improve sleep quality. Tibetan incense is the Tibetan heritage of ancient Buddhist culture under the treasure, the user’s body, chi chakra and mind greatly beneficial.
The process of making Tibetan incense
Tibetan incense production process is generally as follows: first will pick back the Tibetan medicine raw materials through the incense master to “water method” or “fire method” processing, so that its medicinal properties to enhance and weaken the toxicity. And then all kinds of cypress branches with water mill grinding fine, and then all kinds of natural Tibetan herbs and natural spices crushed, made into powder. All the powdered raw materials are blended into a paste with water and left for a certain period of time (the time is strictly regulated). Finally, the paste will be made into strips by hand on the special incense-making apparatus, and the made Tibetan incense will be dried indoors, which is the finished product.
At present, most of the production process of Tibetan incense has said goodbye to the traditional purely handmade production, part of the process has been completed using machines. Dozens of spices are configured in different proportions, crushed, stirred, boiled and brewed in many processes, and finally made into a Tibetan incense that condenses the essence of Tibetan culture.
Types of Tibetan incense and the environment in which they are produced
As far as the form is concerned, out of the different needs of different occasions, Tibetan incense has a variety of shapes such as end incense, thread incense, petal incense, disk incense and so on. The so-called end of incense is the powder of incense wood, can be lit and smoked, but also can be added to the oil coated in the body, in order to prevent insect bites. Line incense, is a strip of incense sticks, with incense wood powder and paste made of long and thin as the line of incense, because it is made after the “branch as long as the line”, so called line incense. Petal incense, is the fragrance of sandalwood fragments, that is, the sandalwood split into a piece of a small petal, the top sandalwood is regarded as Buddhism incense in the very best, so the petal incense is also known as the “big incense”. The so-called disk incense, that is, the line incense in the dry hard before bending into an overlapping ring-shaped incense ring.
Due to Tibet’s special geographic factors and excellent ecological environment, an amazing number of wild plants grow. The huge resources guarantee the abundance and high quality of raw materials for Tibetan incense, and this advantageous condition is naturally one of the extremely important reasons for the development of the incense industry in Tibet. Its aromatic oil plants are rich in resources, and such plant oil is an important raw material for manufacturing flavor, spice and medicine, which is one of the important export raw materials in China, and also an indispensable and important raw material for the traditional incense industry in Tibet. The Tibetan people, in the course of their long-term production and living practices, have accumulated extremely rich and valuable experience in the use of wild plants, which have become a great contribution of the Tibetan people to the world of mankind.
