Seamus Hammond
Incense is a biological aromatic material that releases scented smoke when burnt. It is usually made from plant matter or essential oils to create a pleasing aroma. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonies. It is also used as a deodorant or insect repellent. Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing use cases. Incense is believed to have originated in Egypt, where aromatic trees were imported from Arabia for use in religious ceremonies. It has also been traced back to India, China, and the southern shores of Asia.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| History | The use of incense dates back to biblical times and may have originated in Egypt. It has been used in many ancient cultures, including India, China, Japan, and Egypt. |
| Ingredients | Incense is typically made from plant matter or essential oils, including resins, barks, seeds, flowers, roots, leaves, and spices. Other ingredients may include charcoal, coal, fibres of bamboo, and binding agents such as honey or soft resins. |
| Forms | Incense can take various forms, including sticks, coils, cones, and balls. |
| Uses | Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonial purposes. It may also be used as a deodorant or insect repellent. |
| Health Effects | Incense smoke can cause respiratory system dysfunction and has been associated with allergic contact dermatitis and neoplasm. However, it is also believed to have some health benefits, such as alleviating anxiety and depression. |
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What You'll Learn
Incense in Asia
Incense has a long history in Asia, with a variety of countries across the continent adopting and adapting its use over the centuries.
China
Incense has been used in China since the Neolithic period, with evidence of its use increasing from the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties onwards. It is believed that incense reached the height of its popularity during the Song dynasty (960–1279), with rooms built specifically for incense ceremonies. The composition of Chinese incense has varied over time, with early incense made from herbs like cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood, and incense from the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) incorporating more fragrant foreign materials. Today, incense in China is used in a wide range of cultural activities, including religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, traditional medicine, and daily life.
Japan
Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made by mixing powdered or granulated incense material with a sticky binder such as dried fruit or honey. Japanese Buddhists use a censer called an egōro (柄香炉) to burn incense. Incense cones, which burn relatively quickly, were also invented in Japan in the 1800s.
India
Incense has been used in India since ancient times, with mentions of its use in the Rigveda, circa 1500–1000 BC. India is commonly associated with the production of cored stick incense, where a supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, incense burning is a daily practice for the approximately 23 million people who follow Buddhism or Taoism. During the Lunar New Year and other religious festivals, a large amount of incense is burned in temples, with an estimated total of 3,580 tons of incense consumed yearly.
Other Asian Countries
Incense burning is also a common practice in other Asian countries where Buddhism and Taoism are mainstream religions, such as Thailand. In East Asian countries such as Korea, musk was used in formal ceremonies, and juniper resin, camphor, sandalwood, and eaglewood were burned during official gatherings.
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Incense in Christianity
Incense is an aromatic material that releases a fragrant smoke when burnt. It is often made from biotic materials and has been used in various cultures and religions for centuries. The use of incense in Christianity has a long history and holds significant symbolic value.
In Christian worship, incense is typically used during the celebration of the Eucharist, at solemn celebrations of the Divine Office, funerals, benediction, and the consecration of churches or altars. It is also employed in processions and during divine worship. Incense is particularly prevalent in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lutheran churches of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship, Anglican churches, and Old Catholic/Liberal Catholic churches.
The practice of burning incense in Christian rituals is believed to have originated from the Old Testament. In Exodus 30, God provides specific instructions for constructing an altar of incense in the Holy Place before the Holy of Holies. The composition of this holy incense is described in detail, and it was to burn perpetually before the Lord. "Strange incense," which deviated from God's recipe, was forbidden for worship.
Incense is often associated with prayer and purification rituals in Christianity. In Psalm 141, verse 2, the psalmist compares their prayer to incense, saying, "Let my prayer be directed as incense in thy sight: the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice." Similarly, in the Revelation of John, incense symbolises the prayers of the saints in heaven, as described in Revelation 5:8 and 8:3.
The act of burning incense can also be found in early Christian churches, where it symbolised the ascent of the prayers of the faithful and the merits of the saints during the Eucharistic ceremony. However, some Christians may have reservations about using incense due to its historical association with pagan religions and idolatrous practices.
The process of making incense in the Eastern Orthodox Christian monastic tradition involves powdering frankincense or fir resin and mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are commonly used, but citrus scents like lemon are also known. The incense mixture is then rolled out, cut into cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to dry.
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Incense in Ancient Egypt
Incense, derived from the Latin "incendere", which means "to burn", is a material that is burned to release a pleasant smell through smoke. It is believed that people have known about incense since the invention of fire, with cedar, berries, roots, and resins believed to be the first incense. From there, incense spread through all early major civilizations, including Ancient Egypt.
The burning of incense was central to the worship of the gods in Ancient Egypt, with large quantities burned daily in temples across the country. The Ancient Egyptians believed that incense could cover bad smells and dispel evil demons, thereby appeasing the gods. The type of incense burned also depended on the time of day: frankincense in the morning, myrrh at midday, and Kyphi (Kapet) in the evening. Hathor, for example, was strongly associated with myrrh.
Kyphi, also spelled cyphi or kap-t, was the Ancient Egyptians' favourite incense. It is a compound incense used for religious and medical purposes. It is believed to have been in use since the Old Kingdom, with one recipe recorded in the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1500 BCE). The manufacture of kyphi involves blending and boiling the ingredients in sequence, with some ingredients including wine, honey, honeycomb, ginger, juniper berries, vetiver, sandalwood, aloe, saffron, and aspalathus.
Other types of incense used in Ancient Egypt include ihmut incense, sonter incense, green incense, white incense, and "inflammable incense". Some incense ingredients were home-grown, while others were imported from places like Punt, which provided aromatic woods and spices, and the Levant, which provided cedar wood. Incense ingredients were either ground and thrown on hot coals or mixed with dried fruit like raisins or dates and formed into small pellets to be burned.
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Incense in Japan
Incense is an aromatic biotic material that releases a fragrant smoke when burnt. It is used for aesthetic reasons, religious worship, aromatherapy, meditation, and ceremonies. Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms of incense differ with the underlying culture and have changed with technological advances and increasing uses.
Incense arrived in Japan alongside Buddhism in the 6th century, and it has been a part of ritual practice ever since. Japanese incense, or 'kō' in Japanese, comes in various forms, the most common being senkō, or incense sticks. These sticks are made from powdered aromatic woods, spices, herbs, and oils, mixed with a binder and extruded into sticks or pressed into cones. Japanese incense sticks are always made without a wooden core, which makes them softer than incense from other regions. Other types of Japanese incense include nerikō, a kneaded incense made with a sticky binder such as honey, and awasekō.
In Japan, incense is used in temples, tea ceremonies, and incense ceremonies, as well as casually. The burning of rare and expensive incense woods on special occasions increases their value and makes the experience memorable. The appreciation of incense is one of Japan's oldest and most culturally pervasive arts, with incense utensils becoming highly sought-after art pieces.
Incense burning in Japan has also had negative effects. In temples and other spaces where incense is burnt regularly, the air pollution caused by incense smoke has been documented to have harmful effects on health, such as causing respiratory system dysfunction and allergic contact dermatitis.
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Incense ingredients
Incense is an aromatic biotic material that releases a fragrant smoke when burnt. It is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The raw materials are powdered and then mixed with a binder to form a paste, which is then cut and dried into pellets. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning.
The base and binder are there to heat the aromatics and release their scents. Aromatic ingredients can include all manner of herbs, resins, and woods. Sandalwood, cedar, and pine are all excellent bases that can add a very strong scent to your incense blend. There are types of these woods that are "oil-extracted" or are of lower quality that have very little scent. Red sandalwood, alder, and charcoal are all very low-scent base materials. The binder is a form of glue that holds the incense together in the shape you choose. Common wood binders include joss powder (sometimes called jiggit) and “tabu no ki” (sometimes, incorrectly, called “makko”).
Gum binders (such as guar gum or xanthan gum) are much more powerful than wood binders. A typical incense recipe will use just 1/8 teaspoon of binder for every 2 tablespoons of material. Because of their strength, adding too much gum binder to a recipe can cause it to bind so strongly that it can’t burn. Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry.
In addition to dried and powdered aromatics, many incense makers also include liquid scents such as essential oils, decoctions, hydrosols, and other extracts. While you do need to use a water-based liquid, it doesn’t need to be plain water. Any liquid that is mostly water will work to activate your binder. That means that water, tea, coffee, milk, fruit juices, and other liquids can be used to activate your binder.
A typical composition of stick incense consists of 21% (by weight) of herbal and wood powder, 35% of fragrance material, 11% of adhesive powder, and 33% of bamboo stick.
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Frequently asked questions
Incense is made all over the world, with different cultures and religions adopting its use over the centuries. It is believed that incense originated in Egypt, where aromatic trees were imported from Arabia for use in religious ceremonies.
Incense is also made in China, India, Japan, Somalia, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Incense generally comes in two types: direct-burning and indirect-burning. Direct-burning incense, also called combustible incense, is lit directly by a flame. Indirect-burning incense is not capable of burning on its own and requires a separate heat source. Incense also comes in different forms, including coils, cones, and cored sticks.
