Aromatherapy and the Mind. Julia Lawless
incense was also a substance of purification, especially with regard to those rich odoriferous resins derived from coniferous trees like cedar, juniper and cypress. This corresponds to the central idea behind many Oriental practices, especially those of the Buddhists, in which incense is used extensively as a means of purification.
THE FAR EAST
The Chinese have one of the most ancient systems of herbal medicine, which includes a vast number of indigenous species, such as the Chinese or Japanese angelica, but also imported aromatics. Sandalwood, for example, is listed as an incense and medicine in numerous ancient Chinese texts. Apart from sandalwood, the Chinese have also used storax and the powdered bark of cinnamon and cassia as incense from very early times. Balls of jasmine were used in China to cleanse the atmosphere surrounding the sick and to scent the air during public festivals. Bronze incense burners found in China date back to the Shang Dynasty (1600–1030 BC) and incense still forms an essential element in the religious ceremonies of the Far East today. Borneo camphor, for example, has been used as an incense in the East since ancient times and is still burned in China at funerals.
Like China, India has always been very rich in herbal plants and aromatics have played an important role in traditional medicinal practices as well as religious rituals for thousands of years. The Hindus adopted the ritual use of incense from the Chinese and introduced other ingredients, including frankincense, sarsaparilla seeds, benzoin and cyprus into the recipe. They were the first to use the roots of plants, such as that of the lime tree (Tilia) and Indian spikenard as incense materials. Strongly scented floral fragrances, such as jasmine or rose, also contribute to the characteristic sweetish scent of Indian incense. Fragrances like saffron, cassia, cardamom, cinnamon, aloe-wood, basil and patchouli are also common. In Hindu temples, the god Shiva is offered incense every four hours, mainly frankincense and cyprus.
However, the most popular incense material throughout the Far East is derived from the sandalwood tree. The highest quality comes from Mysore in eastern India. In India the oil is often combined with rose in the famous perfume aytar, which is used to purify body and soul. Sandalwood, cloves, cardamom and curcuma are also blended to form a powder called abir which is used during Hindu ceremonies. In Tantric yoga, sandalwood is described as the scent of the ‘subtle body’, and is used to awaken the kundalini energy and transform it into enlightenment.
Other early evidence of aromatic materials used for ritual purposes in the Far East has been found in the Indus Valley, at the foot of the Himalayas. Harrappan figures of the Mother Goddess dated to the third millennium BC still show the dark stains left by incense smoke. Thousands of years later in Tibet and Nepal, incense is still in use as an offering and purification material, as exemplified by the Tibetan Buddhist Riwo Sangcho or ‘Smoke Puja’. During the rite, cypress and juniper – ‘incense offering of the mountains’ – is commonly burned in order to purify all past karma, and combat and appease negative influences including ‘the elementals who cause disease and bring obstacles, the evil portents of dreams and all kinds of bad omen’.6 This Tibetan rite typically combines animistic-type beliefs with later Buddhist concepts, which ultimately transforms the practice from a purely personal ritual into one which embraces the whole of existence.
Incense was introduced to Japan together with Buddhism in AD 538. For the following 200 years it was used exclusively on Buddhist altars, before being gradually integrated into the everyday life of the Japanese people. Over the next few centuries the practice of scenting clothes using a censer containing resinous balls of incense became extremely popular and aristocrats are known to have fumigated their rooms with a variety of aromatics. At this time, all the incense materials used in Japan were imported via China from different parts of the world. Prominent among the substances used were sandalwood, camphor, borneol, cassia, costus, spikenard, tumeric, angelica, clove, styrax, benzoin, frankincense and aloe or eagle wood.
By the eleventh century, the art of combining different scents had developed into the ‘incense competition’, where interested parties got together to try and guess the composition of their fellow-contestants’ compounds. At the same time, the art of ‘listening’ to incense became associated with the aesthetic appreciation of the period, where a judge would comment on each recipe and express in poetic form the type of mood evoked by its form and fragrance.
Then in the fifteenth century, the ‘kodo ceremony’ or ‘art of incense’ was born. Like the tea ceremony, which emerged during the same epoch, it is a ritual practice based on the spiritual culture and established manners of the Japanese people. During the ceremony, the participants are required to smell, identify and then comment on the particular aroma and effect of 10 pieces of agar wood. The incense material used in the art of incense is limited to agar wood, which gives off various odours according to its age, the part used and the amount of resin it contains, etc. The art of incense is still practised in Japan, although it is not as well known as the tea ceremony, largely due to the lack of agar wood. Today, the aesthetic appreciation of incense is being revived, incense shops in Japan are offering new creations and incense study groups have sprung up. Apart from cultivating refinement of taste and discrimination, the incense ritual also helps train the mind and develop psychic concentration:
If one can suspend any preconceptions about incense to fully experience the ceremony, the happy result will be the ability to appreciate ‘incense time’ as one would ‘tea time’ for relaxation, refreshment and communion with others.7
Like many other Far Eastern countries, the Japanese also favour sandalwood, which they still burn on their Shinto shrines (the pre-Buddhist religion of Japan). It is clear that the use of aromatics for ritual purposes in the Orient is still very much alive today, unlike the Western traditions, which reached a height during the Greek and Roman period before undergoing a gradual but widespread decline.
THE GREEKS AND ROMANS
The Greeks’ love of aromatics and incense is deeply rooted in their history. Ritual incense burners or censers have been excavated from Minoan graves in Crete, dated to before 1500 BC. In The Odyssey, Homer (c. 850 BC) refers to an incense altar in the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos, in Cyprus. The goddess is supposed to have hidden her nakedness with a bough of myrtle and the fragrance of myrtle plays an important role in Greek incense ceremonies up to the present day.
In ancient times, the principal means by which the Greeks honoured their gods was by making human sacrifices and later by burning domestic animals. In the course of time, only a small portion of the meat was burned, together with libations (the pouring of wine) and incense, while the rest was consumed in a festive meal. By the sixth century BC, the Greek custom of making animal sacrifices had been largely replaced by the ritual offering of incense. A Greek inscription at Didyma (about 300 BC) lists frankincense, myrrh, cassia, cinnamon and costus being offered at the temple of Apollo.
The powdered type of incense was generally kept in a special box and burned either on an incense altar in the temple or at a household shrine using a brazier. At public festivals and military triumphs, censers containing incense were borne along by the procession, while large quantities were burned in front of temples and in niches and doorways along the processional route. At celebrations connected with the oracle at Delphi, Thessalian virgins carried baskets of incense and spices at the head of the procession.
Like the Egyptians, the Greeks also used incense to induce a change of consciousness. According to Plutarch, the Pythic Oracle at Delphi used a mixture of bay leaf and barley flour as an incense to help induce a trancelike state. Likewise, when the oracle at Patras was consulted, the priestess prayed and offered incense before gazing into the sacred well to seek an answer. It is more than likely that incense also played a prominent role in the ‘miracle cures’ of the priest-doctors of Asclepius – incenses are included in recipes on marble tablets within their temples.
At funerals, the Greeks burnt incense not only to propitiate the gods, but also as a symbol of transcendence. When cremation replaced