Lidded hill censer (xianglu) with geometric decoration and narrative scenes. Han dynasty, 2nd century BCE
Incense in China is traditionally used in a wide range of Chinese cultural activities including religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, traditional medicine, and in daily life. Known as xiang (Chinese: 香; pinyin: xiāng; Wade–Giles: hsiang; lit. 'fragrance'), incense was used by the Chinese cultures starting from Neolithic times with it coming to greater prominence starting from the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.[1]
One study shows that during the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 220)[2] there was increased trade and acquisitions of more fragrant foreign incense materials when local incense materials were considered "poor man's incense".[3]
It reached its height during the Song dynasty with its nobility enjoying incense as a popular cultural pastime, to the extent of building rooms specifically for the use of incense ceremonies.[1]
Besides meaning "incense", the Chinese word xiang (香) also means "fragrance; scent; aroma; perfume; spice". The sinologist and historian Edward H. Schafer said that in medieval China:
there was little clear-cut distinction among drugs, spices, perfumes, and incenses – that is, among substances which nourish the body and those which nourish the spirit, those which attract a lover and those which attract a divinity.
— The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, a Study of T'ang Exotics, Edward H. Schafer[4]
^ ab劉良佑，《香學會典》，臺北：東方香學研究會 Archived 2020-08-18 at the Wayback Machine，2003
^Needham, Joseph and Lu Gwei-Djen (1974). Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology; Part 2, Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Magisteries of Gold and Immortality. Cambridge University Press. p. 132.
^Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, a Study of T'ang Exotics. University of California Press.
^Schafer, Edward H. (1963). The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, a Study of T'ang Exotics. University of California Press. p. 155.
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