Incense

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Stick, granulated, and cone incense for home use

Incense is a preparation of aromatic plant matter, often with the addition of essential oils extracted from plant or animal sources, intended to release fragrant smoke for religious, therapeutic, or aesthetic purposes as it smolders. In the past, Chinese and Japanese society used incense as a time keeping device in the form of incense clocks. It has been popularly used for thousands of years within India as an integral part of Hindu deity worship. Furthermore, it holds an important usage in Buddhism and, to a lesser extent, some Christian denominations.

Contents

Forms and use of incense

Incense is available in numerous forms and degree of processing. However, incense can generally be separated into direct burning and indirect burning depending on how they are used.

In general, large and coarse incense tends to burn longer than finer incense, and direct burning incense requires less preparation prior to its use. Beyond these facts, preference in incense's form depends largely on culture, tradition, and personal taste. Stick incense is the most common and preferred form of incense used in Chinese and Japanese cultures, thus most of the incense produced in those countries are in stick form. In the West, due to Christianity's tie with Judaism, incense is most often burnt in the form of powder to honour Jesus or one of the Christian saints or angels. A censer is used for this. Candles are also used in worship.

Direct burning

Coil-shaped incense is typically found in China and Japan in the form of mosquito-repellent.

Also called combustible incense. When lit by a flame and then fanned out, the glowing ember on the incense will continue to smolder and burn away the rest of the incense without the continued input of heat. This class of incense is typically made of finely ground fragrant incense materials that have been bound together by a combustible binder.

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.
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.

To use direct burning incense, the incense is set on fire and then extinguished, so that the incense continues to glow and smoke.

Indirect burning

Also called non-combustible incense. The use of this class of incense requires a separate heat source since it does not produce an ember that burns itself. The heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or hot ash. The incense is burned by placing them directly on top of the hot coals or on a hot metal plate in the censer or thurible.

This is the most common form of incense traditionally used in the Middle East and in Christian worship. Similar forms of indirect burning incense are used by the Japanese in kodo (香道). The best known incense of this type are the raw resins of frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Christian Bible. In fact, the word for "frankincense" in many European languages also alludes to any form of incense.

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in its raw unprocessed form on top of coal embers.
Powdered or granulated: The incense material is broken down into finer bits. This incense burns quickly and provides a short period of intense smells.
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. This is seen in many incense-using cultures. Many Arabian incense, also called Bakhoor, are of this type.

Manufacturing

Incense manufacturing applies mainly to direct burning incense since it must be carefully blended and manufactured such that it has ability to slowly and evenly burn itself in entirety.

While indirect burning incense contains mainly fragrant materials, recipes and mixes for all direct burning incense consist of two things: fragrant materials and a combustible base.

Fragrant materials

The fragrant materials provides the aroma and the fragrant smoke when the incense is burned. Many types of fragrant woods, resins, herbs, and essential oils are used as incense or to make incense. These fragrant materials are also commonly used in perfume formulations.

Plant materials

The following fragrance materials are often burned whole (copal, frankencense, etc.) or pulverized (cedar, sandalwood, etc.) before burning or further processing. These are commonly used in religious ceremonies since many of them are considered quite valuable. Essential oils of these materials may be used to make incense, but the resulting incense are usually considered inferior in quality.

Essential oil fragrances

The following fragrances are usually mixed into a carrier, such as wood powder or other solid fragrance material, before being formed into incense. Incense made primarily from essential oils are mainly used for pleasure and burned for their fragrances alone. Essential oil based incense is usually cheaper than original material incense.

Perfumed incense sticks

This is cheapest type of incense. Artificial fragrances and perfumes are usually added, after being formed from charcoal powder. Typically, the essential oils from these plants are not available and are signs of perfumed incense.

Animal-based materials

Combustible incense base

The combustible base not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense. The base also should not burn with a perceivable smell. Commercially, two types of incense base exists:

Gum and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder forms the base of the mixture. Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together while an oxidizer such as Sodium nitrate or Potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are combined into the base as a powder prior to incense forming or after forming as essential oils. The formula for the charcoal based incense base is quite similar to black powder.
Natural plant-based binders: Mucilaginous plant material such as Makko powder, which is made from the bark of the tabu-no-ki tree (Machilus thunbergii) (jap. 椨の木; たぶのき), is mixed with the fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder hold the frangrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when the mixture dries. The dry binding powder usually consists of about 10% dry weight in the finished incense. Many other plants are suitable for use as this type of binder.

Mixture properties

In order to burn evenly and properly, attention has to be paid to certain properties of the incense mixture:

Oil content: Resinous materials such as Myrrh and Frankincense must not exceed the amount of dry materials in the mixture or else the incense will not smolder and burn. The higher the oil content, the more the dry materials needed in the mixture.
Oxidizer quantity: The amount of "chemical" oxidizer in gum binded incense must be well proportioned. Too little, and the incense will not ignite, too much, and the incense will burn too quickly and not produce fragrant smoke.
Mixture density: Incense mixture made with natural binders should not combined with too much water in mixing, or over compressed while being formed. This either results in uneven air distributions or undesirable densities in the mixture, which causes the incense to burns unevenly, too slowly or too quickly.

Forming incense

After the fragrance mixture is determined, the materials must be combined with the incense based and formed into desired shapes. Incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material.

Extruded and pressed: Small quantities of water is 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 these fashions has a tendency to warp or mishapen when improperly dried and as such, must be placed in climate controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

Coated: This method used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. The supporting material, made of either of thin bamboo or wood, is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The sticks are evenly separated then dipped into a tray of damp incense powder, consisting of fragrance materials and a plant based binder, usually makko. 3 to 4 layers of damp 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 that are burned in temples of Chinese folk religion produced in this fashion can have a thickness between 1 to 2 cm.

Incense base can also be formed into incense shapes without any fragrance material. These are purchased by hobbyists who immerse the preformed incense base in their own blends of essential oil mixtures to create specialized incense.

Religious and ethnic use of incense

Biblical use

A compound of aromatic gums and balsams that will burn slowly, giving off a fragrant aroma. The Hebrew words qeto'reth and qetoh·rah' are from the root qa·tar', meaning "make sacrificial smoke." The equivalent in the Christian Greek Scriptures is thy·mi'a·ma.

The sacred incense prescribed for use in the wilderness tabernacle was made of costly materials that the congregation contributed. (Ex 25:1, 2, 6; 35:4, 5, 8, 27-29) In giving the divine formula for this fourfold mixture, God said to Moses: "Take to yourself perfumes: stacte drops and onycha and perfumed galbanum and pure frankincense. There should be the same portion of each. And you must make it into an incense, a spice mixture, the work of an ointment maker, salted, pure, something holy. And you must pound some of it into fine powder and put some of it before the Testimony in the tent of meeting, where I shall present myself to you. It should be most holy to you people." Then, to impress upon them the exclusiveness and holiness of the incense, God added: "Whoever makes any like it to enjoy its smell must be cut off from his people."-Ex 30:34-38; 37:29.

The Catholic tradition employs incense in worship, contained within a thurible.

At the end of the Holy compartment of the tabernacle, next to the curtain dividing it off from the Most Holy, was located "the altar of incense." (Ex 30:1; 37:25; 40:5, 26, 27) There was also a similar incense altar in Solomon's temple. (1Ch 28:18; 2Ch 2:4) Upon these altars, every morning and evening the sacred incense was burned. (Ex 30:7, 8; 2Ch 13:11) Once a year on the Day of Atonement coals from the altar were taken in a censer, or fire holder, together with two handfuls of incense, into the Most Holy, where the incense was made to smoke before the mercy seat of the ark of the testimony.-Le 16:12, 13.

In the Book of Revelation, which is woven with rich imagery, incense symbolises the prayers of the saints in heaven - the "golden bowl full of incense" are "the prayers of the saints" (Revelation 3:8 cf. Revelation 8:3) which infuse upwards towards the altar of God.

Christianity

Incense is employed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and churches of the Anglican Communion, and by most other Christian groups. At any Mass, a priest may choose to use incense. Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, Traditional Catholic Churches, and the Eastern Orthodox use incense more often in liturgical practice. This incense is usually blessed before it is burned.

A thurible is used to contain incense as it is burned. The censer is swung at the object to be incensed; the swing is generally either single or double, depending on the reverence for the object being incensed; for particularly important objects (such as the Blessed Sacrament during its elevation) multiple swings may be performed.

Aside from being burnt, grains of blessed incense are placed in the Easter candle and in the sepulchre of consecrated altars. Many formulations of incense are currently used, often with frankincense, myrrh, styrax, copal or other aromatics.

The smoke of burning incense are viewed by many of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faith as a sign of a good Christian's prayer. [link]

Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto in East Asia

Stacks of incense sticks, bundled for sale at a Buddhist temple in Japan

Incense burning is a common Chinese religious ritual in Chinese ancestor worship, Taoism and Buddhism.

Incense smoke wafts from huge burners in Lhasa, Tibet.

Incense use in religious ritual was first widely developed in China, and eventually transmitted to Korea and Japan. Incense holds an invaluable role in East Asian Buddhist ceremonies and rites as well as in those of Chinese Taoist and Japanese Shinto shrines. It is reputed to be a method of purifying the surroundings, bringing forth the Buddhist Alamkaraka (Realm of Adornment).

Hinduism

Hinduism was the first religion in which incense was used and sacrificed to show loyalty to God. As part of the daily ritual worship within the Hindu tradition of India, incense is offered to God in His deity forms, such as Krishna and Lord Rama. This practice is still commonplace throughout modern-day India, it is said in Bhagavad-Gita that "Krishna accepts the offering made to Him with love," it is on this principle that articles are offered each day by temple priests, or people with an altar in their homes.

Paganism

Incense is also often used in Pagan rituals to represent the element of air. Incense of a wide range of essential oil fragrances are also used in spell and ritual for different purposes.

Frankincense — burned for purification, spirituality and is associated with the Sun.

Myrrh — has similar properties to Frankincense, though it is also used for healing and attraction as well.

Copal — most often burned for purification, both spiritual cleansing as well as for cleansing physical items.

Dragon's Blood — burned for love, strength, and courage and can be used to add potency to any spellwork.

Pine and Cedar — help cleanse space of negative energy.

References

Silvio A. Bedini. (1994). "The Trail of Time : Time Measurement with Incense in East Asia". Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521374820

Incense in Christian worship

[Catholic Encyclopedia (1917) on Incense]
[EWTN Catholic Questions:] Why is incense used during Mass?
[General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) - incensation]
[The Liturgical Customary of the Church of the Advent, Boston (Episcopalian) - Thurifer]
[A Reason for Incense (Lutheran)]

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