The most commonly used fragrance among people should be the kind used for worshiping gods, right? That kind is called bamboo stick fragrance. Also, there is the fragrance of lying without bamboo sticks, which is usually called string incense. In addition to these two, there are many other forms of fragrances. The classification is also very confusing, and the names overlap with each other.


Xian Xiang, also known as "Wo Xiang", needs to be burned upright without inserting incense, or lying flat on fragrant ash. Normally, Woxiang uses less adhesive powder, better ingredients, and a purer scent. If you want to make a burning fragrance, high-end materials usually only make this kind of incense. It's not normal... cheap materials and a lot of sticky powder, you get what you pay for.


The emergence of incense sticks was relatively late compared to other fragrances. The clearly recorded incense sticks were all introduced in the Ming Dynasty, including the Compendium of Materia Medica, and the number of formulas was much fewer compared to other fragrances. At the same time, Japan only introduced the production process of incense sticks from China during the Ming Dynasty.


Bamboo sticks are fragrant, with bamboo cores in the middle, usually used for worship. Due to the presence of bamboo (which has a slight odor) and the requirement of being strong and not easily broken, more adhesive powder will be added, and the materials used will be much lower end. Of course, agarwood can also be used to make bamboo stick incense, but it is only relatively low true agarwood that would be willing to do so. High true agarwood is still used to make sleeping incense. It is worth mentioning that not all bamboo can be used as the core for bamboo stick fragrance. The recognized best bamboo core is a type of bamboo from Guangdong.



Fragrant cakes and printed fragrances - Fragrant tablets and incense cards can also be classified under this category. After grinding and mixing fragrant materials, press them into a cake shape. The difference between the former and the latter lies in whether a mold was used when pressing the cake. This type of fragrance is convenient to carry. In ancient times, there were a large number of incense recipes made into fragrant cakes, which were then thrown onto charcoal or burned or baked. In modern times, they are generally heated and smoked using an electric censer.



It is worth mentioning that Japan is quite popular with printed fragrances, which are also beautifully made with various patterns and high aesthetic value. But... basically=pigment essence sticky powder, which doesn't smell interesting at all.


Maruka, also known as "fragrant beads" or "fragrant pills", is also referred to as "refined fragrance" in Japan. After grinding and mixing the fragrant materials, they are rolled into the shape of meatballs, which can be worn or smoked. It is recommended to heat and smoke them in an electric censer or smoke them over low heat, and generally not directly burn them. The usage of Shiwanxiang and Yinxiang is the same, using the same fragrance formula to create different forms. If it is a traditional fragrant pill, it is more popular to add honey, which is a bit sticky and wet to the feet. Due to the fact that honey is a supersaturated solution of sugar, it particularly loves to absorb water.
In addition, there are some fragrant pills, which are medicinal beads specially used to worship Medicine Buddha. There are many rules for the offerings, so we will not discuss them here.



Zhuan Xiang, also known as Bai Ke Xiang, is a fragrance powder that is pressed onto fragrant ash in a fixed shape or floral cavity using a mold, and then ignited to produce the fragrance. During the Tang and Song dynasties, seal incense was one of the mainstream ways of playing incense, and also had the function of timing. In the Song Dynasty, there was a type of incense called Bai Ke Xiang, which divided a day and night into one hundred scales and was used as a timer. There are countless poems about the fragrance of seal script: Li Qingzhao's "The fragrance of seal script burns away, the curtain hooks under the shadow of the sun." Qin Guan's "To see the soul, cut off the small fragrance of seal script in the golden furnace




Panxiang - is a circular incense made like a long mosquito coil. The passing incense burner has a designated burning time of 2 hours and 8 hours On the contrary, it is an even number, and over time, it is a failure. Few people know about this. Nowadays, many of Jack Ma's products are sold at special prices, such as 1.5 hours or 3 hours, which are actually defective products from the factory and sold at a low price.




Then, as you may have seen in temples, there is a large plate of incense, also known as "tower incense", with a note usually hanging in the middle for making wishes. Temples, ancestral halls, and Taoist temples in the south and Southeast Asia are particularly popular for this.




Cone fragrance - also known as incense cone, tower fragrance, or pagoda fragrance. After grinding the fragrant materials into powder, knead them into a conical shape and ignite them directly like incense sticks. Cone incense is easy to make and does not require a special incense burner. It is indeed convenient to use, but the smoke is particularly large. It is also one of the popular styles for offering sacrifices to Buddha.




Reverse Flow Fragrance - Its appearance is not much different from Cone Fragrance, and when ignited, smoke will flow down from the chrysanthemum position, also known as Flowing Cloud Fragrance. Usually made from low authentic fragrant materials. For this kind of fragrance that is basically devoid of fragrance, just watching the smoke, without love! Due to the downward movement of smoke, reverse flow incense is not suitable for offering to Buddha and worshipping.



After the collapse of the Yabai market, many "Yabai" that have not been aged were used to make this kind of reverse fragrance, due to the high tar content of Yabai. BTW, please don't think that Ya Bai is very expensive anymore. A string of ordinary Ya Bai bracelets in the wholesale market costs only a few yuan~~




Fragrant ointment - also known as spreading fragrance, applying body or applying wonderful fragrance. This was introduced from the ancient Indian side following Buddhism. Apply fragrance to the body to eliminate body odor or heat. In the fifth volume of the "Vinaya Sutra", it is said: "The Indian customs are more precious than men and women, and all kinds of good incense are used to paint their bodies and put on wonderful clothes“








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