What is Incense?The Complete Guide to Incense
Incense in the broader sense means fragrance, aromatic odor. The Dictionary says: all grasses and trees with fragrance are called incense, such as rue, sandalwood and so on.
The broad sense of incense is only a general term for aromatic odors, or refers to natural aromatic plants, the ancients also called “incense medicine”, the West said “incense medicine”, rather than referring to people’s lives can be used directly in the incense. That is, such as “food” is only a general reference, and a certain kind of fragrant flowers, herbs, incense wood, such as food crops in the even one, not only processing is not directly eaten alone. More like medicine, even the best herbs single flavor can not be used to cure the disease, must be based on the needs of the formula, the formation of the king, the subject, the adjuvant, the envoy of the pairing. Chinese medicine treatment, according to the different needs and to establish odd or even formula, attack on or attack the bottom, or into the center, will achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Natural medicines are only the raw materials that nature has given to human beings to choose from. Human beings are not used for other animals, is that human beings are the use of knowledge and wisdom of these raw materials according to the human body’s maximum value and effect of the use, resulting in natural materials and knowledge, cultural thinking fusion of products. The incense used by our ancestors for thousands of years is the crystallization of such an innate wisdom.
Incense in the narrow sense refers to natural aromatic herbs and plant binders as raw materials, according to the needs of efficacy, according to the king, minister, supporting, supporting the formulation of the formulation, and the concoctions and combinations of aromatic herbs, according to the requirements of the process of making a variety of incense products. Among them, traditional incense must be cellared according to the demand in order to become the real meaning of incense.
Incense in the narrow sense is the different forms of incense produced by our ancestors over thousands of years according to the different needs of different uses in daily life, such as burning, wearing, coating, bathing, eating, building and other different needs.
China’s incense, from birth to completion of thousands of years of experience. In the Han Dynasty, the complete rituals of incense have been formed. In the wisdom of the ancients in the condensation, an incense to bring people is not only a simple fragrance, but from the moral cultivation, emotional nourishment, taste, health care, prevention and treatment of disease and other aspects, to give people overall care and nourishment. Therefore, the traditional incense will not be a simple synthesis of incense and medicine, not to mention the use of a single product of incense and medicine, these practices and the formation of Chinese incense culture for thousands of years is very different.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
