Incense

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Incense

***** Location: India, worldwide
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Part of the smell of India is due to incense, frequently used everywhere to overpower other smells, especially during the monsoon season. Patschouli and sandalwood and many more scents come to mind.

Incense is used in many religious rituals too. We have to distinguish between this use (incense, francincense, Weihrauch) and the use of incense sticks, joss sticks (Räucherstäbchen) for every-day fragrance purposes.

Gabi Greve

Other expressions:

incense stick, joss stick, incense coil, aroma coil

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Incense sticks or Agarbatti as it is called in India is as old as the Vedas themselves…

My childhood days were so entwined with my parent’s devoutness and piety . . . their daily prayers in the prayer room – called the Pooja room – the agarbatti filling the silences in the songs my mother sang praising mother goodness – a scene still vivid and clear in my mind . . .

Agarbatti is a small scale industry in India, each state having its many varieties of aroma sticks. Many use exotic blends of the evergreen forest – thus bringing nature into our homes!

trek . . .
through the forest stumble
upon smells i know

Kala Ramesh

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In India warmth and elegance is not only in the hearts of its people, it is in the air too. Floral Incense offers wide range of Incense, Incense Sticks, Dhoop, Agarbattis, Japanese Incense Sticks, Aroma, Cones and Coils that aromatize your surroundings.



All about Indian Incence:
http://www.floralincense-india.com/

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Worldwide use

Germany

Räucherstäbchen, Weihrauch.

Weihrauch is usually only used in Catholic Churches. It is the sap from Boswellia sacra (Boswellia carteri). Frankincense Tree.

Wild Boswellias grow in Somalia and in the Arabic Peninsula. Their resin, the frankincense, is collected during dry periods. The trees are tapped by making a 3 inch incision in the bark, or by scrapping some of it.

More information in English
http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Burseraceae/Boswellia_sacra.html

This is a very useful link in German von Michael Pfeifer
http://www.michael-pfeifer.de/incens/index.html

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Japan

Sometimes I feel the private use of incense in a home is the origin of all modern aromatherapy. To light an incense stick and a candle after a hectic day of work, listen to some soft music and taste some nice ricewine is a treat for all of your senses. It lifts your spirit on a higer level in no time and lets you enjoy the moment as a human BE-ING, not DO-ING for a while.

Incense in Japan has been introduced together with Buddhism in the 5th century and been used during religious ceremonies for a long time. It seems to purify the holy space of a temple and pacify the mind of the worshippers to enable them to get a glimpse (should I say: a whiff) of the Beyond.

But maybe only in Japan has the use of incense been elevated to the "Way of the Incense" (koodoo 香道), next to the Way of Tea, the Way of the Flowers, the Way of the Bow and so many other Japanes WAYs of enriching life with a sence of the true, good and beautiful (shinzenbi 真善美).

During the Heian period the use of incense turned into an elaborate "Fragrance Hobby" (gankoo 翫香) which brings us to the novel of Genji (Genji Monogatari 源氏物語) by Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部.

I have written extensively about the use and the culture of incense in Japan. Please reat the following three articles and come back here.


The smell of incense can be very subtle and faint, so the act of concentrated smelling it is called "listening to incense" (monkoo, bunkoo 聞香, koo o kiku　香を聞く) in Japanese.
Here the verb "KIKU (LISTENING)" in Japanese means to use all senses to appreciate one thing in its full potential and with all your attention. KIKU is maybe the change of the verb 利く, as in "tasting ricewine, kikizake 利き酒", meaning "appreciating" something.

Here is one explanation for this expression with incense:
In the Buddha's world everything is fragrant like incense, including the words of Buddha. Fragrance and incense are synonymous, and Buddha's words of teaching are incense. Therefore Bodhisattvas listen to Buddha's words in the form of incense, instead of smelling them.

Incense stick holder
Incense Burner
Incense Container

Gabi Greve




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In Japan , where almost all are Buddhists, we use incense on every morning to pray to the ancestors . Of course I do it every morning.

with smell of incense
will remember you
tomorrow morning

senkoo ya anata o omou asu no asa

Nakamura Sakuo

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New York

Here in New York, incense has no season, or apparently, any limitations:

Greenwich Village -
in the midst of eight days of rain
the smell of incense

Greenwich Village
Autumn rains persist -
the smell of incense

Kami (Judy Kamilhor)

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Sacramental Christian Churches

incense is a seasonal kigo in the sacramental christian churches.
incense is used on special feast days during the year to enhance the worship service.

on these days incense it used during the opening procession, at the time of the scripture readings, and sometimes the altar and the congregation are blessed with incense.

here is one haiku/senryu i 'got' during a six week stay at a benedictine monastery:

the young monk
reads the gospel
incensed

susan delphine delaney, plano, texas


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



"All in One
One in All"
Daruma smiles
incense silences ~

Narayanan Raghunathan

More of his Daruma haiku are here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/1597

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aki-kaze ya senko no kemuri yurete ori

autumn breeze,
incense smoke coils and twists
signifying nothing

Susumu Takiguchi
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/1384

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incense smoulders
on the bamboo cupboard
rarefied shadows

Geert Verbeke
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/1283

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Beethoven
and some incense smoke -
the longest night

Beethoven
und Incenserauch <>
die laengste Nacht

long night, yo-naga, nagaki yo is a kigo for autumn.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/977

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two curly smokelines
from one incense
wonderous waves

Gabi Greve 2004

... ... ...

burning incense
the smell of another life
behind closed eyes

Carole
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/69

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Ein Mönch vor der Wand.
Regen prasselt ans Fenster.
Ein Räucherstäbchen.

A monk before the wall.
Rain thunders at the window.
An incense stick.
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Arndt Büssing (2000)
http://www.geocities.com/ArBuess/Haiku.html

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incense
drifting at the shrine
loneliness

Dr. Vidur Jyoti, India, April 2008


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Related words

***** Incense coils agains mosquitoes, mosquitoe coils, katori senkoo 香取線香
kigo for all summer

They are used everywhere to keep the mosquitoes away.


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