Aromatic agarwood in China's Buddhist and Taoist practices

The use of incense and aromatic raw materials, has been a long-standing specific area of traditional culture of East Asia. Being a necessity of everyday life, incense is widely used for sanitary and hygienic purposes, in order to prevent diseases, repel insects, and so on. At the same time, incense use was not limited to domestic use: aromatics and incense, possessing a pronounced aesthetic function, have also contributed to relaxation and purification of consciousness. The burning of aromatic wood throughout the ages was widely applied in order to practice various religious and magical rites, where the fragrant smoke would send sacred prayers and wishes of the people straight to the Gods. Many religions of the world, even today, as a gift to God offer fragrant aromatics, among which, a key role was always undertaken by the agarwood (latin. Aquilaria agallocha Roxb.), or “aloe tree”, “eagle wood”, “aloe”, “oud” and others. In China, the most popular can be considered the following names: 沉(水)香 chen ( shui ) xiang (lit. “drowning [in water] fragrance”) and 降真香 jiangzhen xiang (lit. “descended [from heaven] perfect fragrance”), which reflect both physical properties of agar wood (agarwood, infected by fungus sinks in water), as well as mental, associated with its supposedly divine origin. These various names indicate an unusually important place of this fragrant agent in the life and culture of the East. Agarwood holds a unique role as a cultural core of incense in China. It underlines the fact that in addition to its domestic uses as an aromatic wood (as well as its derived medicinal oil), it is still widely used in traditional medicine, spiritual healing practices, in arts and crafts, as well as religious and magical rites in Buddhism and Taoism. Studied rituals and magical practices using incense in some Buddhist temples and Taoist shrines in China demonstrate unique features of contemporary religious rites. Based on the writings of Buddhist sources, as well as some of the Taoist medical treatises and certain Taoist meditative spells, the features of the use of aromatic agarwood is discussed in writing, artistic and pictorial traditions of China. Examples of religious-mystical Buddhist and Taoist practices that use incense show an extraordinary resilience of the traditional outlook, based on immutable values of written tradition and folk understanding, as well as ritual and sacred paraphernalia that accompany the most important stages of human life within society.