The Satyanarayan Puja is a religious worship of the Hindu god Vishnu. Satya means “truth” and narayana means, “The highest being” so Satyanarayan means “The highest being who is an embodiment of Truth”.[1][2] Vrat or Puja means a religious vow, religious observance, or obligation. Hindus throughout [3] perform Sri Satyanarayan Vrat for the divine blessings of health, wealth, prosperity, opulence, education; relief from troubles and sickness. It can also be performed because of success in business or career growth; during social functions like marriages, house-warming ceremonies, naming of the children and so on.

  

This puja is first mentioned in Skanda Purana, Reva Kanda by Suta Puranik to the rishis in Naimisharanya. The details are part of the Katha (Story) that is usually read during the ritual[4]

  

A painting of Narayana (Viṣṇu) seated on lotus

Sri Satya Narayana puja is a very popular ritual in most parts of India including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Maharashtra, Assam, and Goa[citation needed].

 

The ritual is usually performed on the Full moon day of every month, Ekadashi (11th day after full moon or new moon), Kārtika Pūrṇimā, Vaiśākhā Pūrṇimā, solar eclipse day or on Saṅkrānti except during Āṣāḍha Candra Masa[citation needed]. It is also performed on special occasions and during times of achievements, as an offering of gratitude to the Lord. These occasions could include marriage, graduation, start of a new job, purchase of a new home, to name a few. In addition, the performance of this most auspicious puja generally confers a child to couples trying to start a family[citation needed].

 

The Satyanarayan puja can be performed on any day for any reason. It is not a puja confined to any festivities, but Purnima (full moon day) is considered specifically auspicious for this puja. Performing this puja in the evening is considered more appropriate. However, one can perform this puja in the morning as well[citation needed].

 

This puja is very simple, can be performed by anyone, and it does not require a priest to perform it. The original concept was instructions given by rishi Narada Munich while on tour of earth he noticed tremendous amounts of sufferings all around due to malnutrition. The diseases observed by him was due to vitamin, protein, difficiencies including multiple infections diseases. He went to lord Vishnu and described the situation and was told with instructions to perform Pooja and the other stories to be narrated. One of the key instruction was to invite as many friends, relatives and neighbors to attend the ceremony and to feed them and to offer as many types of fruits as possible and the sufferings will be eliminated, and this was due to being well fed and consumption of fruits. Later on brahmans add all other false benefits, artis and stutis. The performance of artis, stutis is only around 700 years old and these were mostly composed by sant Tulsidas. As far as getting rich, marriage etc it was implemented by greedy brahmans to enrich themselves. This practice in modern times is doing more harm then good to folks who have acess to rich food, one should refrain from serving any cooked food may be a wise decision would be to serve hygienic all prepared foods.

 

Preparation[edit]

 

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The previous night, think of Lord Sri Satyanarayana and mentally decide to perform puja the next day. Invite your relatives and friends. Tradition mandates to abstain from worldly pleasures.

 

On the puja day, early in the morning keeping the same thoughts of worshiping the Lord, take a head bath. If performing the evening, again take a head-bath. This should be done by both husband and wife. Wear a clean dress.

 

Observe Fast (if possible).

 

Keep all the things for puja ready, near the altar. The total duration of the puja - start to finish – will be around 3 hours.

 

Decorate the front door with mango leaves. The place near the altar is cleaned (with cow dung, where possible).

 

The Altar is placed in an East-West direction such that the devotees performing the puja will be seated facing east. It is decorated with floral designs, usually using rice flour and other colored powders. A new white cloth is spread on the Altar and layered with raw rice.

  

Peeta

A Kalash (small pot made of Silver, Copper, Brass, or even earthen) is placed in the middle of Altar. It may be filled half with water. A coconut is placed on top and wrapped with a cloth. Mango or betel leaves are placed between the coconut and the pot. This too is decorated with Chandan (Sandal paste) and kumkum.

 

A framed picture of Lord Satyanarayana is placed on the far side of the Altar. Flowers and garlands can be placed on this frame.

 

Place all the puja items near the Altar.

 

The devotees performing the puja will be seated facing the Altar.

 

Prasad[edit]

The food is cooked as normal, usually rice, dal and vegetables; avoiding any non-vegetarian (egg, meat, and fish dishes).

 

Make sure the kitchen is kept clean and devoid of impurities.

 

The main Prasad[5] [offering] (is also called as Sapatha or Sapaada Bhakshya[ಸಪಾದ ಭಕ್ಷ್ಯ]) is prepared with equal parts (usually one and one-forth parts) of sugar, Semolina, and Ghee. Popularly, it is cooked to blanch. Cardamoms, cashews, raisins, and/or bananas may be added while cooking or as garnishing. Some people avoid cooking and merely mix the ingredients together.

 

Various regional variations exist in the way it is cooked. It also has various names - Telugu Prasadam,[6] Marathi Sheera,[7] Bengali Sinni,[8] Punjabi Panjiri,[9] etc.

 

The main Prasad is offered together with daily food, various fruits, and Panchamrutam (uncooked mixture of Milk, Yogurt, Ghee, Honey, and Sugar).

 

Items needed for puja[edit]

The following is a list of items needed for the puja.[10][11][12][13]

 

Haldi (Turmeric powder)

Kumkum ( Red vermillion or Sindoor )

Navadhanya ( a mixture of nine herbs offered to navagraha ( nine planets ) )

Incense sticks

Camphor

Sandal paste

A photoframed picture of Lord Satyanarayana

A small idol (or coin) of Lord Satyanarayana

Akshat (rice grains mixed with turmeric powder).

Raw rice (about 1 kg)

Betel leaves (100)

Betel nuts (50)

Coins (40)

Dry Dates/ Almonds (50)

Coconuts (8)

Flowers and floral garlands

Two jars (Silver, Copper, Brass, or even earthen) – one for Kalash and another for the ritual

Two flat plates

A bell

A large pidha table (for use as Altar)

A large yellow cloth (to cover the Altar)pit is the favourite colour or satnarayan he wears pitambar or yellow clothes

A piece of red cloth (for the kalash)

A ghee lamp (with at least three wicks)

An oil lamp

Cotton wicks

Panchamrita (Uncooked mixture of milk, yogurt, honey, sugar, and ghee)

Good to have

 

Conch shell

One thousand Tulasi (Indian Basil) leaves.tulasi manjari(flower of tulasi)

Banana tree / leaves as a canopy.white tila two table spoons.white tila or white sesame seeds is favorite of Lord Satnarayan. Rose is his preferred flower.

Procedure[edit]

The following procedure is as prescribed by and performed in Andhra Pradesh.[14] Several regional and traditional variations occur as mentioned in the following section.

  

Sri Satyanarayana Puja at home

The devotee begins by purifying oneself (achamniyam) and sankalpam (a vow that the named devotee is performing the puja on such time and era, to attain such cause).

 

The puja starts with a prayer to Gaṇesha, to remove all obstacles that may occur as a result of incorrectly performing the puja. This is done by the sixteen upacharas, chanting the names of Lord Gaṇesha and offering prasada (offering usually consisting of banana, coconut, modak, a sugar and coconut mixture, or laddu) and the showering of flowers. Subsequently Varuna puja (kalash puja) is performed.

 

A uniqueness of this puja is the invoking of pancha lokapalaka, navagrahas along with their companion and co-companions, and the eight dikpalakas. This totals to 40 (5+9+(9*2)+8). Each God has a vedic symbol of a unique metal. Since these are difficult to obtain by the common means, and since the modern currency coins by minted with multiple metals, each Guest God is represented by a coin. They are placed on a betel leaf. The betel nut, akshit and dry dates are the offerings. Thus, the requirement of 40 coins, betel leaves and dry dates.

 

The main puja commences with the worship to Lord Satyanarayana. The idol (or coin) of Lord Satyanarayana is bathed and cleaned with panchamritam. After placing the deity in the correct position, 1008 names of Sri Satyanarayana are chanted.

 

This is followed by offering of Prasada and flowers (Mantra Pushpam).

  

Satya Nārāṇaya Pooja

Another requirement of the puja is that the story be heard among all those observing and partaking in the puja.[15]

 

The five-part story involves the origin of the puja, benefits of the puja, the potential mishaps that may occur with the forgetting performance of the puja, the magnitude of the Lord’s benevolence and the importance of the Prasad, and consequences of snubbing the ritual.[16]

 

The puja concludes with an Aarti, which consists of lighting camphor in the vicinity of an image of the Lord.

 

After the puja is over, participants and observers of the puja are required to partake the prasad that was offered and blessed by the Lord.

 

Regional and Traditional Variations[edit]

Many places the Varuna/ Kalash puja is done while invoking Ganesh at the start of the puja.

The number of Athitis (divine guests) invoked varies substantially. Thus, the number of coins and betel leaves count varies.

Sri Satyanarayana Swami Katha[edit]

An essential part of this puja is listening to the Sri Satyanarayana Swami Katha (narrative).[17]

 

The five-part story involves the origin of the puja, benefits of the puja, the potential mishaps that may occur with the forgetting performance of the puja, the magnitude of the Lord’s benevolence and the importance of the Prasad, and consequences of snubbing the ritual.[18]

 

Chapter 1 narrates the origins of the puja. Sri Satyanarayana Katha comes from the Skanda Puraṇa, Reva khaṇḍa.[19] Suta Maharṣhi is the one narrating this account to Saunaka Muni, in Naimiṣaraṇya to the ṛiṣhis who were performing a thousand year yajna for the benefit of humanity. The procedure itself was narrated my Sriman Narayana to Narada.

 

Chapter 2 narrates the benefits of the puja. A poor Brahmin was approached by Lord Himself in disguise and He advised him of the puja. Upon successful completion of the puja, the Brahmin could overcome his difficulties and enjoy eternal bliss. It also narrates about the good fortune of a woodcutter who witnesses the Brahmin performing the puja and continues to gain prosperity after performing the puja.

 

Chapter 3 narrates the mishaps that may occur for dishonoring the vow to perform the puja. A merchant, with an intention to establish family, vows to perform the puja upon having a child. He adjourns the vow to complete it during the child’s marriage. Upon forgetting the vow, the Lord puts the merchant in hardship. The merchant is falsely accused and imprisoned. His entire business is confiscated by the king. His household goes bankrupt. He is freed when his wife recollects the promise and performs the puja.

 

Chapter 4 narrates about the Lord’s benevolence and the importance of the Prasad. This is a continuation of the previous chapter. During an incident, the merchant puts off the Lord about his merchandise, thereby losing all its value. Realizing his folly, the merchant regrets his intemperance and seeks forgiveness. On hearing that the merchant reached the dockyard, his wife and daughter, who were performing the puja at that time, forget to take the Prasad. Angered with the disrespect, He makes the boats sink into the sea, only to be restored when they have the Prasad.

 

Chapter 5 narrates about the importance of the puja and not that of the devotees. A group of backwoodsmen was performing the puja. King discards and disregards the offerings, thereby invoking the wrath of Sri Satyanarayana. The king loses his kingdom, wealth, and family, only to be restored upon realizing his recklessness and seeking forgiveness to Sri Satyanarayana and accepting the offerings.

 

For the three nights straddling the Mid-Autumn festival[3], visitors can also see the spectacular Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance. It's a 67-metre-long 'fire dragon' that winds its way with much fanfare and smoke through a collection of streets located in Tai Hang, close to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. The Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance started in 1880 when Tai Hang was a small Hakka village of farmers and fishermen on the waterfront of Causeway Bay. This custom has been followed every year since 1880, with the exception of the Japanese Occupation and during the 1967 disturbances.[4]

According to local legend, over a century ago, a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, a typhoon and then a plague wreaked havoc on the village. While the villagers were repairing the damage, a python entered the village and ate their livestock. According to some villagers, the python was the son of the Dragon King. A soothsayer decreed the only way to stop the chaos was to stage a fire dance for three days and nights during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers made a huge dragon of straw and covered it with incense sticks, which they then lit. Accompanied by drummers and erupting firecrackers, they danced for three days and three nights – and the plague disappeared.

Indian Deities.

   

Our Indian Hindu friends are celebrating Deepavali next week. Singapore's Little India is transformed into an exotic treat for the senses, with thousands of coloured lights and dozens of special stalls set up, selling anything from beautiful brightly-coloured silk saris, shining jewellery, aromatic spices, scented jasmine garlands, incense sticks, and statues of Indian deities and much more.

An oil lamp is an object used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although not commonly anymore.

 

Oil lamps are a form of lighting, and were used as an alternative to candles before the use of electric lights. Starting in 1780, the Argand lamp quickly replaced other oil lamps still in their basic ancient form. These in turn were replaced by the kerosene lamp in about 1850. In small towns and rural areas the latter continued in use well into the 20th century, until such areas were finally electrified and light bulbs could be used.

 

Sources of fuel for oil lamps include a wide variety of plants such as nuts (walnuts, almonds) and seeds (sesame, olive, castor, flax). Also widely used were animal fats (butter, fish oil, shark liver, whale blubber, seals). Camphine, a blend of turpentine and alcohol, was the first "burning fluid" fuel for lamps after whale oil supplies were depleted. It was replaced by kerosene after Congress enacted excise taxes on alcohol to pay for the Civil War.

 

Most modern lamps (such as fueled lanterns) have been replaced by gas-based or petroleum-based fuels to operate when emergency non-electric light is required. Therefore, oil lamps of today are primarily used for the particular ambience they produce.

 

COMPONENTS

The following are the main external parts of a terra-cotta lamp:

 

- Shoulder

- Pouring hole

The hole through which fuel is put inside the fuel chamber. The width ranges from 0.5-5 cm in general. There may be single or multiple holes.

 

- Wick hole, and the nozzle.

It may be just an opening in the body of the lamp, or an elongated nozzle. In some specific types of lamps, there is a groove on the superior aspect of the nozzle that runs along to the pouring hole to re-collect the oozing oil from the wick.

 

- Handle

Lamps can come with or without a handle. The handle can come in different shapes. The most common is a ring shaped for the forefinger surmounted by a palmette, on which the thumb is pressed to stabilize the lamp. Other handles can be crescent shaped, triangular, or semi-ovalular. The handleless lamps usually have an elongated nozzle, and sometimes have a lug rising diagonally from the periphery. The lug may act as a small handle where the thumb rests. Some lugs are pierced. It was speculated that pierced lugs were used to place a pen or straw, called the acus or festuca, with which the wick was trimmed. Others think that the pierced lugs were used to hang the lamp with a metal hook when not in use.

 

- Discus

- Fuel chamber

The fuel reservoir. The mean volume in a typical terra-cotta lamp is 20 cc.

 

LAMP TYPOLOGY

Lamps can be categorized based on different criteria, including material (clay, silver, bronze, gold, stone, slip), shape, structure, design, and imagery (e.g. symbolic, religious, mythological, erotic, battles, hunting).

 

LAMP TYPOLOGICAL CATEGORIES

Typologically, lamps of the Ancient Mediterranean can be divided into seven major categories:

 

Wheel-made: This category includes Greek and Egyptian lamps that date before the 3rd century BC. They are characterized by simple, little or no decoration, and a wide pour hole, a lack of handles, and a pierced or unpierced lug. Pierced lugs occurred briefly between 4th and 3rd century BC. Unpierced lugs continued until the 1st century BC.

 

Volute, Early Imperial: With spiral, scroll-like ornaments (volutes) extending from their nozzles, these lamps were predominantly produced in Italy during the Early Roman period. They have a wide discus, a narrow shoulder and no handle, elaborate imagery and artistic finishing, and a wide range of patterns of decoration.

 

High Imperial: These are late Roman. The shoulder is wider and the discus is smaller with fewer decorations. These lamps have handles and short plain nozzles, and less artistic finishing.

 

Frog: This is a regional style lamp exclusively produced in Egypt and found in the regions around it, between c. 100 and 300 AD. The frog (Heqet) is an Egyptian fertility symbol.

 

African Red Slip lamps were made in North Africa, but widely exported, and decorated in a red slip. They date from the 2nd to the 7th century AD and comprise a wide variety of shapes including a flat, heavily decorated shoulder with a small and relatively shallow discus. Their decoration is either non-religious, Christian or Jewish. Grooves run from the nozzle back to the pouring hole, it is hypothesized[by whom?] that this is to take back spilled oil. These lamps often have more than one pour-hole.

 

Slipper lamps are oval-shaped and found mainly in the Levant. They were produced between the 3rd to 9th centuries AD. Decorations include vine scrolls, palm wreaths, and Greek letters.

 

Factory lamps: Also called Firmalampen (from German), these are universal in distribution and simple in appearance. They have a channeled nozzle, plain discus, and 2 or 3 bumps on the shoulder. Initially made in factories in Northern Italy and Southern Gaul between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, they were exported to all Roman provinces. The vast majority were stamped on the bottom to identify the manufacturer.

Oil lamps in religious contexts

 

JUDAISM

Lamps appear in the Torah and other Jewish sources as a symbol of “lighting” the way for the righteous, the wise, and for love and other positive values. While fire was often described as being destructive, light was given a positive spiritual meaning. The oil lamp and its light were important household items, and this may explain their symbolism. Oil lamps were used for many spiritual rituals. The oil lamp and its light also became important ritualistic articles with the further development of Jewish culture and its religion. The Temple Menorah, a ritual seven-branched oil lamp used in the Second Temple, forms the centre of the Chanukah story.

 

CHRISTIANITY

There are several references to oil lamps in the New Testament, In the Orthodox Church and many Eastern Catholic Churches oil lamps (Greek: kandili, Slavonic: lampada) are still used both on the Holy Table (altar) and to illuminate icons on the iconostasis and around the temple (church building). Orthodox Christians will also use oil lamps in their homes to illuminate their icon corner. Traditionally, the sanctuary lamp in an Orthodox church is an oil lamp. It is lit by the bishop when the church is consecrated, and ideally it should burn perpetually thereafter. The oil burned in all of these lamps is traditionally olive oil. Oil lamps are also referenced as a symbol throughout the New Testament, including in the Parable of the 10 Virgins.

 

HINDUISM

Oil lamps are commonly used in Hindu temples as well as in home shrines. Generally the lamps used in temples are circular with places for five wicks. They are made of metal and either suspended on a chain or screwed onto a pedestal. There will usually be at least one lamp in each shrine, and the main shrine may contain several. Usually only one wick is lit, with all five burning only on festive occasions. The oil lamp is used in the Hindu ritual of Aarti.

 

In the home shrine, the style of lamp is usually different, containing only one wick. There is usually a piece of metal that forms the back of the lamp, which has a picture of a Hindu deity embossed on it. In many houses, the lamp burns all day, but in other homes, it is lit at sundown. The lamp in the home shrine is supposed to be lit before any other lights are turned on at night.

 

A hand-held oil lamp or incense sticks (lit from the lamp) are also used during the Hindu puja ceremony. In the North of India, a five-wick lamp is used, usually fueled with ghee. On special occasions, various other lamps may be used for puja, the most elaborate having several tiers of wicks.

 

In South India, there are a few types of oil lamps that are common in temples and traditional rituals, some of the smaller ones are used for offerings as well.

 

- Deepalakshmi, a brass lamp with a depiction of goddess Sri Lakshmi over the back piece. They are usually small and have only one wick.

- Nilavilakku, a tall brass or bronze lamp on a stand where the wicks are placed at a certain height.

- Paavai vilakku, a brass or bronze lamp in the form of a lady holding a vessel with her hands. This type of lamp comes in different sizes, from very small to almost life-size. There are also large stone versions of this lamp in Hindu temples and shrines of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, especially at the base of columns and flanking the entrance of temples. They have only one wick.

- Thooku vilakku, a brass or bronze lamp hanging from a chain, often with multiple wicks.

- Nachiarkoil lamp, an ornamental brass lamp made of series of diyas, a handicraft product which is exclusively made by Pather (Kammalar) community in Nachiyar Koil town in Tamil Nadu, India.

 

CHINESE FOLK RELIGION

Oil lamps are lit at traditional Chinese shrines before either an image of a deity or a plaque with Classical Chinese characters giving the name of the deity. Such lamps are usually made from clear glass (they look similar to normal drinking glasses) and are filled with oil, sometimes with water underneath. A cork or plastic floater containing a wick is placed on top of the oil with the bottom of the wick submerged in the oil.

 

Such lamps are kept burning in shrines, whether private or public, and incense sticks or joss sticks are lit from the lamp.

 

HISTORY

Curved stone lamps were found in places dated to the 10th millennium BC (Mesolithic, Middle Stone Age Period, c. 10,300–8000 BC). The oldest stone-oil lamp was found in Lascaux in 1940 in a cave that was inhabited 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

 

Some archaeologists claim that the first shell-lamps were in existence more than 6,000 years ago (Neolithic, Later Stone Age, c. 8500–4500 BC). They believe that the alabaster shell-shaped lamps dug up in Sumerian sites dating 2600 BC were imitations of real shell-lamps that were used for a long time (Early Bronze, Canaanite / Bronze I-IV, c. 3300–2000 BC).

 

It is generally agreed that the evolution of handmade lamps moved from bowl-shaped to saucer-shaped, then from saucer with a nozzle, to a closed bowl with a spout.

Chalcolithic Age, c. 4500–3300 BC

 

The first manufactured red pottery oil lamps appeared. These were of the round bowl type.

 

THE BRONZE AGE (3200–1200 BC)

Lamps were simple wheel-made bowls with a slight pinch on four sides for the wick. Later lamps had only one pinch. These lamps vary in the shape of the rim, the general shape of the bowl and the shape of the base.

 

INTERMEDIATE BRONZE AGE LAMPS (EBIV/MBI)

The earliest lamps known from Intermediate Bronze Age lamps (EBIV/MBI) With the four wick lamps. These lamps are made from large bowls with four shallow pinches for wicks.

 

MIDDLE BRONZE AGE LAMPS (MB)

The four-wick oil lamps persist into this period, most of the lamps now have one wick. Early in this period the pinch is shallow, while later on it becomes more prominent and the mouth protrudes from the lamp's body. The bases are simple and flat. The crude potter’s wheel is introduced, transforming the handmade bowls to a more uniform container. The saucer style evolves into a single spout shape.

 

LATE BRONZE AGE LAMPS (LB)

A more pronounced, deeper single spout is developed, and it is almost closed on the sides. The shape is evolving to be more triangular, deeper and larger. All lamps are now wheel-made. The base is simple, usually flat.

 

THE IRON AGE (1200–560 BC)

The rim becomes wider and flatter with a deeper and higher spout. The tip of the spout is more upright in contrast to the rest of the rim.

 

The lamps are becoming variable in shape and distribution. We still find lamps similar to the Late Bronze period. In addition, other forms evolve, such as small lamps with a flat base and larger lamps with a round base. The later form continues into the Iron Age II.

 

In the later Iron Age, we encounter variant forms. One common type is small, with a wide rim and a wide base. Another type is a small, shallow bowl with a thick and high discus base.

 

ARCTIC

The seal-oil lamp (Qulliq) provided warmth and light in the harsh Arctic environment where there was no wood and where the sparse inhabitants relied almost entirely on seal oil. This lamp was the most important article of furniture for the Inuit, Yupik and other Eskimo peoples.

 

The lamps were made of stone and their sizes and shapes of lamps could be different, but mostly were elliptical or half-moon shaped. The wicks were mostly made of dried moss or cottongrass and was lit along the edge of the lamp. A slab of seal blubber could be left to melt over the lamp feeding it with more fat.

 

PERSIAN

These large lamps have thin sides and a deep pinch, which flattens the mouth and makes it protrude outward.

 

GREEK

Lamps are more closed to avoid spilling. They are smaller and more refined. Most are handleless. Some are with a lug, pierced and not pierced. The nozzle is elongated. The rim is folded over to make the nozzle, so it overlaps and is then pinched to make the wick hole.

 

They are round in shape, wheel-made.

 

CHINESE

The earliest Chinese oil lamps are dated from the Warring States period (481-221 BC). The ancient Chinese created oil lamps with a refillable reservoir and a fibrous wick, giving the lamp a controlled flame. Lamps were constructed from jade, bronze, ceramic, wood, stone, and other materials. The largest oil lamp excavated so far is one discovered in a 4th-century tomb located in modern Pingshan, Hebei.

 

EARLY ROMAN

Production of oil-lamps shifted to Italy as the main source of supply. Molds used. All lamps are closed in type. Lamps produced in large scale in factories. The lamp is produced in two parts, the upper part with the spout and the lower part with the fuel chamber. Most are of the characteristic Imperial Type. It was round with nozzles of different forms (volute, semi-volute, U shaped), with a closed body and with a central disk decorated with reliefs and its filling hole.

 

LATE ROMAN

The High Imperial Type. More decorations. Produced locally or imported in large scale. The multiple-nozzled lamps appear. Different varieties.

 

In this period we find the frog type lamps. These are kidney or heart shaped or oval. With the motif of a frog or its abstraction, and sometimes with geometrical motifs. They were produced around 100 AD. They are so variant that it is seldom that two identical ones are found.

 

BYZANTINE

EARLY ISLAMIC

There is a transition period from Byzantine to Islamic lamps. The decoration on lamps of this transition period changed from crosses, animals, human likenesses, birds, fish, etc., to plain linear, geometric, and raised-dot patterns.

 

The early Islamic lamps continued the traditions of Byzantine lamps. Decorations were initially a stylized form of bird, grain, tree, plant, or flower. Then they became entirely geometric or linear with raised dots.

 

In 9th-century Baghdad, al-Razi (Rhazes) described the first kerosene lamp; he referred to it as the "naffatah" in his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets).

 

In the transition period some lamps had Arabic writing. Then writing disappears until the Mamluk period (13th to 15th centuries AD).

Industrial age

INDUSTRIAL AGE

Oil-burning carriage lamps provided a model for the first bicycle lamps in the 1860s.

 

REGIONAL VARIATIONS

ISRAEL AND PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

- Jerusalem oil lamp: Characteristic black color of the clay because the clay was burned without oxygen. Usually of high quality.

- Daroma oil lamp:

- Jerash oil lamp:

- Nabatean oil lamp:

- Herodian oil lamp: Considered to be used mainly by Jews. Wheel made, rounded. Nozzle with concave sides. The lamps are usually not decorated. If there is decoration, it tends to be simple. Very common throughout all of Palestine, and some lamps have also been found in Jordan. Date from the 1st century BC to the end of the 1st century AD.

- Menorah oil lamp, seven nozzles: Rare and are associated with Judaism because of the numerical connection with the seven branches or arms of the Menorah.

- Samaritan oil lamp: Characterized by a sealed filling hole, which was to be broken by the buyer. This was probably done to ensure ritual purity. A wider spout, and the concavities flanking the nozzle are almost always emphasized with a ladder pattern band. In general the lamps are uncoated. The decorations are linear and/or geometric.

Type I: A distinct channel running from the pouring-hole to the nozzle, a small knob handle, a ladder pattern around the nozzle and shows no ornamentation on the bottom of the base.

Type II: Pear-shaped and elongated, lined channel that extends from the filling-hole to the nozzle, continued to be used through to the early Muslim period.

- Candle Stick oil lamp: Menorah design on the nozzle and bunch of grapes on the shoulders.

- Byzantine oil lamp: The upper parts are covered with braided patterns and their handles. All are made of a dark orange-red clay. A rounded bottom with a distinct X or cross appears inside the circled base.

- Early Islamic oil lamp: Large knob handle and the channel above the nozzle are dominant elements. The handle is tongue-shaped. Decoration is rich and elegant. The lower parts are extremely broad and the nozzles are pointed.

 

IMPORTANCE OF OIL LAMPS IN INDIA

In Vedic times, fire was kept alive in every household in some form and carried with oneself while migrating to new locations. Later the presence of fire in the household or a religious building was ensured by an oil lamp. Over the years various rituals and customs were woven around an oil lamp.

 

For Deep Daan, the gift of a lamp was and still is believed to be the best daan (donation). During marriages, spinsters of the household stand behind the bride and groom, holding an oil lamp to ward off evil. The presence of an oil lamp is an important aspect of ritual worship (the Shodashopachar Puja) offered to a deity. Moreover, a day is kept aside for the worship of the lamp in the busy festival calendar, on one amavasya (no moon) day in the month of Shravan. This reverence for the deep is based on the symbolism of the journey from darkness and ignorance to light and the knowledge of the ultimate reality – "tamaso ma jyotirgamaya".

 

Earlier lamps were made out of stone or seashells. The shape was like a circular bowl with a protruding beak. Later they were replaced by earthen and metal lamps. In the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, there are references to gold and silver lamps as well. The simple shape evolved and the lamps were created in the shapes of the matsya (fish), kurma (Tortoise) and other incarnations of god Vishnu and also in the shape of the many emblems of gods like conch shells, lotuses and so on. The birds like swans, peacocks, parrots and animals like snakes, lions, elephants and horses were also favorites when decorating a lamp. For lighting multiple lamps, wooden and stone deepastambhas (towers of light) were created.

 

Erecting a deepastambha in front of a temple is still a general practice in western and southern India. In some of the South Indian temples, raised lamp towers called Kamba Vilakku made of brass can be seen. For adapting the design to households and smaller spaces, the deepavriksha (tree of light) was formed. As the name suggests, it is a metal lamp container with aesthetically curvi-linear lines branching out from the base each holding a lamp. The Deepalakshmi is another common design where goddess Lakshmi holds the lamp in her hands. Kuthuvilakku is another typical lamp traditionally used for household purposes in South India.

 

Oil lamps also became proverbial. For example, a Bradj (pre-Hindi) proverb says, "Chiraag tale andhera", "the [utmost] darkness is under the oil-lamp (chiraag)", meaning that what you seek could be close but unnoticed (right under your nose or feet), in various senses (and indeed, a lamp's container casts a strong shadow).

 

OIL TAX

When the Big Temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu was built 1010 AD, there were elaborate measures taken to provide lighting for the temple. Lands were donated to or conquered for the temple for this sole objective. The income from these lands would go towards providing the oil for the lights.

 

BOOKS AND CATALOGUES

GENERAL

Bailey, D.M. (1972). Greek and Roman Pottery Lamps. British Museum. ISBN 0-7141-1237-2. Excellent introductory booklet, well illustrated.

Bailey, D.M. (1975–96). A Catalogue of Lamps in the British Museum. British Museum. ISBN 0-7141-2206-8. Huge catalogue in four quarto volumes, THE lamp bible but extremely expensive even second-hand. Referred to as BMC.

Clephan, R. Coltman (1907). On Terra-cotta Lamps. Edinburgh. Edwardian illustrated article for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, interesting insight into the general knowledge of that time.

Djuric, Srdjan (1995). The Anawati Collection Catalog I - Ancient Lamps from the Mediterranean. Eika. ISBN 1-896463-02-9. Less academic than the museum catalogues and short on dating but fairly comprehensive (within its specified area, i.e. not Northern Europe) and extensively illustrated.

Hayes, J.W. (1980). Ancient Lamps in the Royal Ontario Museum - I: Greek and Roman Clay Lamps. ROM. ISBN 0-88854-253-4. Another superb catalogue and excellent reference, perhaps second only to Bailey

Lyon-Caen; Hoff (1986). Catalogue des Lampes en terre cuite Grecques et Chretiennes. Louvre. ISBN 2-7118-2014-9. In French, good coverage of earlier and later lamps in the Louvre, well illustrated.

Mlasowsky, Alexander (1993). Die antiken Tonlampen im Kestner-Museum Hannover. Kestner-Museum. ISBN 3-924029-13-X. In German, superb catalogue, profusely illustrated and captioned.

Robins, F.W. (1970). The Story of the Lamp. Kingsmead. ISBN 0-901571-33-4. (Reprint of 1939 edition.) Useful introduction but illustrations are very poor and beware as several of the items shown have since been exposed as fakes.

Skinkel-Taupin, Claire (1980). Lampes en Terre Cuite de la Méditerranée Grecque et Romaine. Brussels. In French, brief guide to a few lamps in the Brussels Museum.

Walters, H.B. (1914). Catalogue of the Greek and Roman Lamps in the British Museum. British Museum. Superseded by Bailey but still worthwhile and much cheaper if you can find an old copy.

Wetzel, Henning (1997). Antike Tonlampen. Leipzig University. ISBN 3-931922-65-0. In German, small booklet but excellent illustrations in color.

 

WESTERN EUROPE

Chrzanovski, Laurent (2000). Lumieres Antiques: Les lampes à huile du musée romain de Nyon. Edizioni ET. ISBN 88-86752-15-6. Paperback. In French with short summaries in English, Italian and German. Excellent general survey of lamps, detailed study and catalogue of the small collection of Roman oil lamps at Nyon.

Eckardt, Hella (2002). Illuminating Roman Britain. Montagnac: Editions Monique Mergoil. ISBN 2-907303-70-8. Paperback, frustratingly unindexed but a refreshing approach and well worth plowing through.

Goethert, Karin (1997). Römische Lampen und Leuchter. Trier: Auswahlkatalog des Rheinischen Landesmuseums Trier. ISBN 3-923319-38-X. In German, emphasis on local lamps found in Trier but excellent coverage of all Roman types of the Rhineland.

Kirsch, Annette (2002). Antike Lampen im Landesmuseum Mainz. Mainz. ISBN 3-8053-2864-8. In German, catalogue of lamps.

Loeschcke, Siegfried (1919). Lampen aus Vindonissa. Zurich. In German, long out-of-print classic but a superb reference if you can find a copy

 

MIDDLE (NEAR) EAST

Adler, Noam (2004). A comprehensive catalog of oil lamps of the Holy Land from the Adler collection. Israel: Old City Press. ISBN 965-555-166-0. Comprehensive coverage of lamps from Palestine region.

Rosenthal, Renate; Sivan, Renée (1978). Qedem 8, Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology, Vol. 8: Ancient Lamps in the Schloessinger Collection. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Standard reference.

 

AEGEAN

Broneer, Oscar (1977). Isthmia Volume III: Terracotta Lamps. American School at Athens. Good coverage of local lamps.

Perlzweig, Judith (1963). Lamps from the Athenian Agora. American School at Athens. Excellent booklet, profusely illustrated and a recommended reference, very cheap used copies.

 

NORTH AFRICA

Fabbricotti, E. (2001). Catalogo delle lucerne di Tolemaide (Cirenaica), BAR International Series 962. Oxford. ISBN 1-84171-182-9. In Italian, detailed catalogue of locally found lamps.

Herrman, J.L.; van der Hoek, Annewies (2002). Light from the Age of Augustine. Harvard. Paperback, lavishly color-illustrated guide to North African red slipware including many lamps.

 

WIKIPEDIA

in Chợ Lớn (Chinese district), Saigon, Vietnam

This Fire Dragon Dance is one of the many traditional festivals in Hong Kong. I found it very amazing as the guy swinging this fire ball made of many many incenses sticks.

 

This stunning event is usually held around Mid-Autumn Festival in Hong Kong sometimes in Sept, sometimes in Oct because it is based on the Chinese New Year Calendar so each year is different.

Picked up some incense sticks at the shops today. I instantly had a helper in Fin as soon as he heard burning stuff was involved!.To be fair Fin helped loads and wafted the smoke when it got a bit boring. He even pointed out when to take the shot

Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is a very spiritual place; thousands of people constantly moving around the temple complex make it a very busy place, with incense smoke rising up to the sky.

 

As the sunset hundreds of small oil lamps were lit around the central stupa, lighting up the faces of those praying and lighting new incense sticks.

This shot was taken for a competition running on one of the sites I visit often.. they wanted a photo from a book or part of a book so I decided to shoot one based on Thumbelina.

 

The good thing about this is that my step-daughter also gets a nice shot of her being a fairy.. and what little girl wouldn’t want that?

 

I used three images for this shot, the forest background was taken while in Ireland a few year ago.. while the mushroom’s and my step-daughter were shot in my loft studio.The mushrooms were sitting in a shallow baking tray filled with water and the smoke came from incense sticks were I captures the smoke into a cold glass (just out the freezer) so that the smoke would fall down due to being colder than the room.

 

I hope you all enjoy.

   

*Lighting*

 

One soft-box’s at the front right, a strobe at the back left shooting some card on the back Left (to act as another softbox/rim light).The same lighting was used for both shots (of the mushrooms and my step daughter.. just moved a bit due to subject

size.)

Diagram in comments.

Offering for Loard Buddha

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This temple [Wat] is located in Nong Khai Thailand.Just before crossing into Laos.

What you see at the far end is outside steps leading up to the temple it's self.

Hand held Nikon D300, 17-55 2.8 Nikkor lens, SB800 Nikon Flash Gun.

 

The smell of many incense sticks burning along with chanting in all directions. Beautiful place...;-)

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This shop is near to the Meenakshi Amman Temple in

Madurai. They sell incense sticks, sacred ash (Vibhuti), sandal paste and other pooja (worship) related items.

 

Sandalwood Paste and sacred ash are usually applied to forehead of people after worship or to statues and photos of Gods and Goddesses.

 

Canon 400D + Canon EF 35mm f1.4 L

 

Street Photography Interesting Photos

Looks like a major blizzard is getting ready to roll over the New England states this week, so I took time away from my busy preparations to finish making some incense storage and burner boxes. This one is made from a solid block of figured maple which I hollowed out to hold several dozen incense sticks. The lid is made of some wavy grained walnut I reclaimed, and features an ash trough for the smoldering incense stick, and a circular indent for ease of sliding the lid open.

 

This and a few other boxes I finished this weekend are listed in my online shop (please refer to the Etsy information in my profile).

 

Now wish me luck with all the snow we're expecting this week - up to 3 feet or more!!

I've been wanting to try photographing smoke for a while. I finally bought some incense sticks and proceeded to smoke-up and stink-up my home office. Graham Jeffery has an excellent blog entry on how to photograph smoke. If you're interested, I'd head over there to see his photos and read about his technique. I'll post some comments on my blog when I get a chance. I colorized some of these images in Photoshop. Those that are more subtlety colored (about half of them) show the natural colors of the smoke itself (with some saturation added in a few cases).

 

All of my smoke images were created with two light sources. The first was natural light coming through an window on the left. I doubt the natural light contributed much (if anything), because my shutter speed was 1/250 and the f-stop was f/10. To the right of the smoke I placed a Canon Speedlite set to full power. Those setting pretty much nuked any ambient light. To prevent any light from spilling onto the background, and flaring into the lens, I attached a couple of 4" X 8" cardboard "gobos" to the sides of my flash (using Velcro). I wish now that I had taken a setup shot. Oh well, next time.

Props - a bowl, mud, water, a lit candle and a couple of incense sticks.

 

Photoshopped to create an abstract like image

 

52 weeks of 2014 - Week 45: The Elements - Earth, air, fire, water

100 in 2014 - 7. Double

Package Design for Aromatika Incense Sticks. This packaging was targeting the middle segment.

The Varanasi Ganga Aarti takes place every sunset at holy Dasaswamedh Ghat, near Kashi Vishwanath Temple. It differs from the aartis at Haridwar and Rishikesh in that it's a highly choreographed ceremony. Although a spectacular must-see, some people consider it to be too much of an artificial and showy extravaganza to have a lot of meaning in a spiritual context.

 

The aarti is performed on a stage by a group of young pandits, all draped in saffron colored robes with their puja plates spread out before them. It commences with the blowing of a conch shell, and continues with the waving of incense sticks in elaborate patterns and circling of large flaming lamps that create a bright hue against the darkened sky. The movement of the lamps, held in the pandits' hands, is tightly synchronizing to the rhythmic chants of hymns and clang of cymbals. The heady scent of sandalwood thickly permeates the air.

Last weekend I went to a local historical old street at Taipei, which named as "Bo-Pi-Liao" since 1850, where was used to be very popular & business centre at that time. The old street was 100 meters long and was reconstructioned since 2003 and reopened last year in 2009 under the supervision of the organization called "Heritage and Culture Education Centre of Taipei city"

 

The district where old street located called "Monga". And early this year the same name movie with high sale record in Taiwan, which introduced the teenagers' story occured at the old street and the district. Therefore the old street now become a famous sightseeing place, within the old street, visitors can see so many old stores, old advertising boards & architectures along the street, and within the old house, there are art exhibition combined local & international artist's artwork.

 

I try to capture these images , which included the haircut store, the tea house, the hotel, the drugstore, photographing house, ice house, and the old papa-mama booths which sell the nuddle, the salt rice soup , the meat duppling , which are the local Taiwanese dishes what people eat in daily life. Some of the dishes are still existed until now, some of them become history. I try to capture & express the nostalgic atmosphere through the overlayering skill. And later on I will upload some clear single shot of the old street and those historical stuffs , which will be very interesting & fresh for the foreign friends.

 

You can take a look first about the architecture & shops at the old street at local friend's blog at www.wretch.cc/blog/bajenny/16075064 (photos only , text is in Chinese)

The big pot of burning incense is a common site in front of large temples in Japan. People light large bundles of incense sticks and leave them burning in the pot. I decided to go for a new angle on this scene (new for me at least) and hold my camera with wide angle lens as directly above the pot as I could. Given that I'm very tall, this wasn't so hard to do and the resulting picture turned out fairly well in my opinion.

 

Taken at the Kawasaki Daishi, one of the more famous temples in the Kanto area.

9 Bottles of different ml sizes, All filled with different things, some open others do not.

Set #4 includes:

emerald resin, dried lentils, sapphire resin, red incense sticks, black glitter scales, synthetic grass, white decor sand, blood red resin, emerald resin.

18obo

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This little girl came by to help me light incense sticks.

 

After burying Mr Brown I stopped at a Buddhist Temple

on the way home to pray for Mr Browns next journey.

While doing so this little baby kitty curled up next to me.

Is there a message in all of this ? I hope so .................... ;-)

  

Jon&Crew.

 

Please help with your donations here.

www.gofundme.com/saving-thai-temple-dogs.

  

Please No Awards, Gyrating Graphics,

Invites or Large Group Logos, Thank You.

 

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Photographing smoke trails gives some weird and wonderful shapes and patterns. When this is combined with photoshop, it is surprising what can be achieved. An abstract smoke trail image. Original photograph manipulated and coloured in photoshop.

I have been trying to take some indoor shots for quite some time. I thought about quite a few shots . Candle flames , objects with extremely shallow DoF etc. Turns out that all these shots are extremely cliche'd. Stumbled upon these really awesome looking pictures of smoke and I thought of trying them out.

 

An elaborate setup ( for me at least) involving light strobes ( A Strobe ? Yeah , right ! It was more of a fluroscent lamp) was setup and then began the journey of 800 shots+ to get this clear , crisp image ! Incense sticks were used for the smoke. I've learnt a couple of things .

1. Working with smoke is really tough. It keeps drifting and throws all your manual focusing out.

2. You have to use manual focus , since AF just doesn't work !

3. Light ! You need lot and lot and lot of light. I initially started with a lamp , then added a 21 bulb reflector lamp and then a 17 LED headlamp to get optimum lighting .

4. A flash ( canon speedlite's) really helps the cause . I didn't have a flash and struggled quite a bit . It also explains the 800+ shots !

 

Nevertheless , great fun . I have attached my "Studio Setup" for this shot below ( Studio setup ??? Yeah , right ! )

 

EXIF | EOS 450D | 55-250mm | 100mm | F5 | 1/40sec | ISO 400 |

We have only missed one Open House in six years. With that in mind we did mean to make a good deal of it. But, what with work, travel and all the other stuff, I was planning the day mainly on Friday evening, looking at what was available in the guide. I had intended on a few of the Livery Houses, as well as some City Churches. Then there was the usual favourite of Admiralty House which we have failed to make it round to over the last few years, and as it turned out would again this year.

 

Should we have set the alarm for crack of dawn, or even before? Maybe we should have done, but then there was always Mulder to ensure we didn't sleep too long. IN the end it was nearly half six by the time we gave in and got up, fed the cats and made breakfast. It was a dull, grey morning but that could be a good thing, right? Not so hot on old London town, or so we hoped. I checked on the train times only to find that there were no trains from down the hill at Martin Mill, so that meant going into Dover, which meant either stumping up the cost of parking or find somewhere free.

 

We find a place along Priory Gate Road, whilst I try to park, Jools goes to buy tickets, as we have only a few minutes before we leave, and we have yet to have breakfast! I think we could have got something from the station buffet, but decide against it, and instead climb aboard the train and take a place around one of the tables in the front coach, ready to leave.

 

You know the trip by now, so I won't go into details. I look out the windows, always finding something new to look at, whilst JOols does some crocheting on the squares for the blanket she is making. And in this way we go through Kent, into Essex and into the tunnel to Stratford.

 

We get out, and go up to the concourse and have breakfast where I normally stop when I'm on my way to Denmark. We have coffee and baguette melt things, which is mighty fine indeed, and sets us up. To get to Stratford regional station, we walk through the shopping centre, and it really is horrific to see such a cathedral to commercialism. I mean I have no problem with shops and shopping, I like shopping. But three laevels of glittering and shiny emporiums, all selling pretty much what could be described as designer gear, and all of it pretty much looking very uncomfortable. Maybe its what makes people happy. Maybe not. And it goes on for ages until we get to the broken automatic doors and onto the bridge over the Great Eastern Main Line; but any thought of looking at the trains going back and forth were dashes as every glass panel had been covered up with advertising for Citroen cars. Do we really need all this? Is this public or private space? I know the shopping centre is private, but this is just silly now.

 

On the Jubilee Line we get a carriage to ourselves, at least for a while, and wait for it to leave. The line runs beside the DLR line, at least to Canning Town, then it dives underground, and in the non-air conditioned carriages, its pretty warm.

 

We get off at London Bridge, with the hope of seeing the new concourse beneath the Southeastern platofrms, but we can only find our way to the Southern terminal platforms, and for a change, there was no strikes so all seemed to be working well. Saying that, we could find no signs for toilets, and so set out towards the bridge itself, to cross into the City, where there were some public conveniences near to the Monument. It seems that the modern world means less public conveniences, who says this should be? Phillip K. Dick didn't see that one coming.

 

Once in The City, the plan went out the window as usual, and I began the usual trudge round the City churches that are usually closed. Just the other side of Lloyds and in the shadow of the Gherkin, sits St Andrew Undershaft, not a small church, but dwarfed by the modern buildings that have risen around it. It is also partially hidden by the queues waiting to go into The Gherkin, usually the most popular building in Open House, and for which most people waiting will not get in to. We tried the first year and gave up when we found we were going to have to wait at least six hours and with no guarantee we would get in.

 

But we ask if we could get through the line, and find the door to the church open, and so we walk in. What greets us is an ancient church, but done with a modern makeover; ancient walls, and new wooden floor and seating. We were given a warm welcome, but for a moment I was just stunned to be inside, this being the first time I had even found the church open. Regular tours are taking place, but I decline one to go around myself and see if I can see the history of the old building.

 

I am met by one of the guides, who has already spoken to Jools, and asks me about why I am here. I can't really answer, even when put into the context of the Kent Church Project, because, why do I do that? What will I do with the thousands of images? I have to say, I am not sure. But I have a desire to see history, and to see inside something built by a name we all know, Sir Christopher Wren, a link to him and the Great Fire.

 

We are all looking for meaning in life, I am, and those who came before me are. I may have a modern scientific outlook, but still, why have I spent the last eight years of my life visiting 300 or so Kent churches, why do I re-visit the same places every year looking for orchids? Well, I enjoy it, and maybe that's enough.

 

I decry the enforced closure of St Peter Upon Cornhill to all those that its custodians allow inside; why should that be? It is a place of historic importance to London and England, why not allow all to see? I tell her of The Friends of City Churches, whose volunteers enable many churches to be opened at least one day a week, and could that not be extended to St Peter? She agrees that it should.

 

I take my shots, as usual, and we leave.

 

Up Cornhill we come to another church, not one I expected to see, but clearly is open; so we go inside. St Mary Cree is a delight, empty apart from us and the volunteer quietly reading near the door. It is a triumph to be honest, and unlike At Andrew, I can go round, seeing all what I want to see. Another understated City church, and a haven of gold, peace and light among the ugliness of the modern City outside.

 

I had been told in St Andrew that St Helen's in Bishopgate would be open. It was just a short walk, according to the map. IN fact, I didn't realise how close, and from St Andrew you could almost touch St Heneln's, but through narrow streets and lanes, we reach St Helen's, and indeed the door was open.

 

We go inside, and are greeted with the most extraodinary interior; a double nave, and also a church that survived both the Great Fire and the Blitz did not fare so well at the hands of the IRA who managed to bomb it twice at the beginning of the 1990s. So it has been restored, but the people who run it, St Andrews and St Peter Uopn Cornhill had had it done to meet their needs. Not to say it isn't a fine and unusual church, it is, but it has something of a sports hall about it, even with those 13th century walls. And it was wildly popular, with hundreds of people being taken round in tours, and over the state of the art system, a description of the church, and how it varies from the traditional Anglican churches. I run round getting shots, inbetween tours passing by.

 

So, three new City churches in one day. Won't be able to say that again I think!

 

We walk back to Bank station and catch a train to Chancery Lane to where there is a Tudor hall, part of a college, and is open. We follow the signs from the station, only to find them disappear once we get onto street level. We stop at a juice bar for some squeezed fruit and to consult a map. I am sure the college is just along the steet, and indeed this is the case.

 

We walk through a gateway, and soon have left the modern world behind. Apart from the hall, the ancient buildings have been lost, but Gresham College is still a place of learning, and offers free lectures to all, and they are all available online. We attend an intoroduction in the hall, and marvel at the surroundings. The college goes back to the 14th century, and its founder came from Norfolk. See, not such a bad place after all!

 

Where should we go now? Well, I consult the list, and a considerable journey away is a Gothic masterpiece. In order to get there and be able to see other buildings beyond that, we take a cab. We flag a taxi down, and despite telling his where we wanted to go, he latched onto the station at Warwich Avenue, and being the site of a driver's rest, he knew that, and would take no answer on the offer of the postcode for the church.

 

He drops us off outside the tube station, and after some orientation we find our way on the A to Z, and make our way over the canal at Little Venice.

 

After a short walk we realise we are hungry, and see a pub-cum-theatre on the other side of the road. We go in, and despite sloe service we order lunch and a drink. I have fish and chips whilst Jools had burger with cheese and yet more meat. It comes and is good, for London.

 

Once we had eaten, we walk farther along the road, at the edge of a 60s housing estate, then down a dip and over a playing field was St Mary Magdalene. A mighty Gothic pile, some child's nightmare maybe. Inside it was all that and more, a higher than high church, lit with candles and incense sticks. On the walls there were the stations of the cross. Everywhere were altars and icons, making this the most Catholic of CofE church I have seen. And yet there was one further glory to see: in the crypt, a chapel, covered in gold and idols, as Catholic as it is possible to get. I am not Christian or religious, but this plethora of sects is bewildering, high, low, Baptist, strict, non-conformist and so on. Its the same God, no? Be good, you yourself and others and be saved, is that not the message of Jesus?

 

We could have gone on. Admiralty Building was next, but I was done, and so we walked back to Warwick Avenue; we did not see Duffy, we flag a cab down and he takes us back to St Pancras, arriving ten minutes before the departure to Dover. We go upstairs to the platofrm, and find a seat. Phew, going home.

 

The tript o Ashford was quiet and usual enough. But there a group of four, two couples, gets on, with carry outs and drink quickly and are loud. Who am I to judge how people spend their spare time, but do anyway. I listen to their loud conversation as one can of vodka/red bull is downed, and other started. There are going to Folkestone for a night of more drinking, apparently. They are looking forward to a concert by UB40 in a few eeks time, and all seem to live for drunken fun. But who am I to judge?

 

They get off at Folkestone Central, and silence returns to the train. We get off at Dover, walk to the car and drive home. The football had ended, Norwich had won in Nottingham, whichw as good news and spared me all the stress of following the game via the radio and twitter.

 

We have cheese and crackers for supper, I watch the football on TV, and the just gone full moon rises, partially hidden behind light cloud.

 

Another fine day comes to an end.

at Ligong pagoda temple, Hangzhou

I have captured this old man, behind a batch of incense sticks in front of a temple located in Qianfo Mountain in Jinan. A kind of hide-and-seek game as the guy was moving non stop, talking on his mobile phone...

 

500px

Colorful brasilian incense sticks

Hi there

 

This is my first attempt at Bokeh photography I used some xmas lights and incense sticks

  

Vom 13. April bis zum 15. Oktober 2017 findet die IGA 2017 auf dem erweiterten Gelände der Gärten der Welt in Berlin-Marzahn stattt.

 

Der Balinesische Garten in der Tropenhalle ist ein Beispiel für die Anordnung eines Wohnkomplexes im südlichen Bali. Eine Lehmziegelmauer grenzt die Wohnanlage von der Umgebung ab.

 

Der Haus- oder Familientempel („Sanggah“) innerhalb der Wohnanlage ist erneut durch eine Mauer abgegrenzt. Die Schreine auf den hohen Sockeln erhalten in Bali täglich neue Opfergaben aus Blumen, Früchten und Räucherstäbchen.

 

Das größte Gebäude der Wohnanlage ist ein Allzweckbau. Der „Bale Dangin“ genannte, überdachte Pavillon dient den unterschiedlichsten Beschäftigungen. Neben der Wohnanlage befinden sich in der Tropenhalle der IGA Reisterrassen.

  

The International Garden Show (IGA) 2017 is being held from 13 April to October 15, 2017, in the enlarged area of the "Gardens of the World" Park in the Berlin borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

 

The Balinese Garden in the Tropical Glasshouse is an example of the design of a residential compound in South Bali. A clay brick wall separates the compound from the surrounding. The house or family temple ("Sanggah") inside the compound is separated by another wall. The shrines on high pedestals are redecorated daily in Bali with new offerings of flowers, fruits and incense sticks. The largest building on the compound, a pavilion called "Bale Dangin" serves multiple purposes. In the IGA Tropical Hall the residential compound is near the neighbouring rice terraces.

"No ashes are lighter than those of incense, and few things burn out sooner."

(Walter Savage Landor - English writer and poet, 1775-1864)

 

This Holy man was burning incense sticks, as a gesture to Agni, the God of Fire, while facing the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).

For the sadhu the world is alive with unseen forces that must be continually propitiated with offerings and cleansing rituals.

Their sacred fireplaces, known as dhuni, perform the same function as incense, on a larger scale, which is to transform matter into aether.

Burning incense is thus a reminder, of the sacred power of fire to transform, and the ultimate journey of all physical matter towards spirit.

For most Indians, incense remains an important part of the daily puja ritual, which is a religious offering performed by all Hindus to their deities, especially during the beginning of a new venture, or to commemorate some special occasion.

The aspect of the ritual known as Dhupa involves the offering of incense before the picture of a deity, as a token of respect.

 

Indian incense-making involves a wide variety of ingredients.

In accordance with Ayurvedic principles, all the ingredients that go into incense-making are categorized into five classes:

1. Ether (fruits) - examples: Star anise

2. Water (stems and branches) - examples: Sandalwood, Aloeswood, Cedarwood, Cassia, Frankincense, Myrrh, Borneol

3. Earth (roots) - examples: Turmeric, Vetivert, Ginger, Costus root, Valerian, Indian Spikenard

4. Fire (flowers) - examples: Clove

5. Air (leaves) - examples: Patchouli

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This is Miu: PloesiePoesie #046. She is, and she knows, that she is beautiful! She is made of white fleece and has black and red lace on her fur! On her belly she has a very funny ‘Thank You’ patch in the shape of a Chinese takeout bag. Miu is 14” tall and I think she's one of the most gorgeous PloesiePoesies I've made.

 

Each PloesiePoesie is 100% handmade and 100% unique. There are no 2 alike. And... just like real cats each PloesiePoesie has a unique name and a unique character. Every PloesiePoesie is tagged with it’s unique number and comes with a personal behavioral guide. In this guide you will find 10 tips, favorites and character features of your own PloesiePoesie. It’s very important that you check these guidelines carefully to see if you and this PloesiePoesie are a good match.

 

These are the 10 tips, favorites and character features of Miu:

 

1. Please don’t wash me. I’m a cat and cat’s don’t like water.

 

2. I’m very much into Feng Shui. It’s important to me that you put my kitty litter box in the right corner of your house.

 

3. I would really appreciate it if you burned some incense sticks every day. My favorite smell is sandelwood.

 

4. My biggest dream is to visit the Chinese Wall someday.

 

5. I only drink tea. I think Jasmine tea is the best

 

6. I don’t really like watching television, only if there’s sump wrestling on. Sumo wrestlers are funny!

 

7. My favorite food are Chinese spring rolls with a lot of hot sauce. I like spicy food!

 

8. A book that I believe is very interesting is ‘The Book of Tao’, that’s written a very long time ago by Lao Tzu

 

9. I like being combed every day. A massage is fine too. If you do it nicely, I will give you a good one too, I’m very good with kneading my paws on your back!

 

10. If you think I’m sleeping, you’re wrong. I’m always meditating!

An Oil lamp being carried in a plate.

Around festival time, it is Typical of ladies to carry oil lamps, incense sticks, sweets,

water, saffron, etc on a plate to walk to the temple to offer prayers.

  

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Diwali Celebrations at Home.

2010, New Delhi.

 

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# www.f-stop.in

monk's alms bowls in the process of being made at baan baat, the only remaining bowl making "village" in bangkok. shaped from single piece of metal i'm told.

 

monks leave the monasteries early in the morning...walk single file, oldest first, carrying their alms bowls in front of them...laypeople wait for them, and place food, flowers or incense sticks in the bowls.

 

A Chinese ceramic lotus shaped insence burner with a Montblanc. wrist watch.

 

THE HISTORY OF INCENSE:

 

The word "perfume" comes from Old Provincial French perfumar - per "through" and fumar "to smoke". This explains the art of perfumery, believed to have begun in the Middle East with the burning of incense. The use of incense dates back to biblical times and may have originated in Egypt, where aromatic trees were imported from Arabia to be used in religious ceremonies.

 

Ganjin, a Buddhist priest from Tang China, reached Japan in 754 AD. This venerable priest, well known for introducing Buddhist precepts into Japan, should also be remembered for his accomplishment in the history of incense. through medical incense and the skill of nerikoh (blended incense balls), Ganjin introduced a thriving incense culture from Tang dynasty China into Japan.

 

Takimono, a kind of nerikoh, is made of powdered incense for medical use, together with binding substances such as nectar and treacle. there was no fragrance incense before nerikoh in Japan, and people used to burn medical incense to generate fragrances. As nerikoh is a mixture of ingredients, different mixtures created subtly different fragrances. As a result, people made their own favorite fragrances from original concoctions. In this context, incense was no longer used as a religious offering, but as a tasteful pleasure called soradakimono designed for the enjoyment of graceful aromas. This was the start of the esthetic and artistic world of graceful incense-burning in Japan.

 

Court nobles in the Heian period (8th to 12th centuries) concocted original takimono in search of graceful and sophisticated fragrances for personal use. Different blends were used for different times, occasions or seasons, according to the mood of the moment. To impregnate their clothes or suffuse their rooms for guests, court people burnt their favorite blend of incense. “Takimonoawase”, an incense game where participants competed to produce better fragrances, also started in this period. Not quite satisfied with the simple fragrances of flowers and fruits in nature, court nobles created fragrances for their pleasure, thus establishing the foundation of a peculiar incense culture that was firmly attached to a keen awareness of the seasons. This is how the essential quality of Koh-Do (“the Way of Incense”) was formed.

 

Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term refers to the material itself, rather than to the aroma that it produces. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, and in therapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insectifuge.

 

Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.

 

Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense (or "non-combustible incense") is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense (or "combustible incense") is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.

 

HISTORY:

 

The word incense comes from Latin incendere meaning "to burn".

 

Combustible bouquets were used by the ancient Egyptians, who employed incense in both pragmatic and mystical capacities. Incense was burnt to counteract or obscure malodorous products of human habitation, but was widely perceived to also deter malevolent demons and appease the gods with its pleasant aroma. Resin balls were found in many prehistoric Egyptian tombs in El Mahasna, giving evidence for the prominence of incense and related compounds in Egyptian antiquity. One of the oldest extant incense burners originates from the 5th dynasty. The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt contains a series of carvings that depict an expedition for incense.

 

The Babylonians used incense while offering prayers to divining oracles. Incense spread from there to Greece and Rome.

 

Incense burners have been found in the Indus Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence suggests oils were used mainly for their aroma. India also adopted techniques from East Asia, adapting the formulation to encompass aromatic roots and other indigenous flora. This was the first usage of subterranean plant parts in incense. New herbs like Sarsaparilla seeds, frankincense, and cypress were used by Indians.

 

At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times and became more widespread in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The earliest documented use of incense comes from the ancient Chinese, who employed incense composed of herbs and plant products (such as cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood) as a component of numerous formalized ceremonial rites. Incense usage reached its peak during the Song dynasty with numerous buildings erected specifically for incense ceremonies.

 

Brought to Japan in the 6th century by Korean Buddhist monks, who used the mystical aromas in their purification rites, the delicate scents of Koh (high-quality Japanese incense) became a source of amusement and entertainment with nobles in the Imperial Court during the Heian Era 200 years later. During the 14th-century Ashikaga shogunate, a samurai warrior might perfume his helmet and armor with incense to achieve an aura of invincibility (as well as to make a noble gesture to whoever might take his head in battle). It wasn't until the Muromachi period during the 15th and 16th century that incense appreciation (kōdō) spread to the upper and middle classes of Japanese society.

 

COMPOSITION:

 

A variety of materials have been used in making incense. Historically there has been a preference for using locally available ingredients. For example, sage and cedar were used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Trading in incense materials comprised a major part of commerce along the Silk Road and other trade routes, one notably called the Incense Route.

 

Local knowledge and tools were extremely influential on the style, but methods were also influenced by migrations of foreigners, such as clergy and physicians.

 

COMBUSTIBLE BASE:

 

The combustible base of a direct burning incense mixture not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense with such regularity that it can be used to mark time. The base is chosen such that it does not produce a perceptible smell. Commercially, two types of incense base predominate:

 

Fuel and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder provides the fuel for combustion while an oxidizer such as sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are added to the base prior to shaping, as in the case of powdered incense materials, or after, as in the case of essential oils. The formula for charcoal-based incense is superficially similar to black powder, though it lacks the sulfur.

 

Natural plant-based binders: Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together. Mucilaginous material, which can be derived from many botanical sources, is mixed with fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder holds the fragrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when lit. The dry binding powder usually comprises about 10% of the dry weight in the finished incense. These include:

Makko (incense powder) made from the bark of various trees in the genus Persea (such as Persea thunbergii)

Xiangnan pi (made from the bark of trees of genus Phoebe such as Phoebe nanmu or Persea zuihoensis.

Jigit: a resin based binder used in India

Laha or Dar: bark based powders used in Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries.

 

Typical compositions burn at a temperature between 220 °C and 260 °C.

 

TYPES:

 

Incense is available in various forms and degrees of processing. They can generally be separated into "direct-burning" and "indirect-burning" types. Preference for one form or another varies with culture, tradition, and personal taste. The two differ in their composition due to the former's requirement for even, stable, and sustained burning.

 

INDIRECT-BURNING:

 

Indirect-burning incense, also called "non-combustible incense", is an aromatic material or combination of materials, such as resins, that does not contain combustible material and so requires a separate heat source. Finer forms tend to burn more rapidly, while coarsely ground or whole chunks may be consumed very gradually, having less surface area. Heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or glowing embers. In the West, the best known incense materials of this type are the resins frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Bible. Frankincense means "pure incense", though in common usage refers specifically to the resin of the boswellia tree.

 

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in raw form on top of coal embers.

Powdered or granulated: Incense broken into smaller pieces burns quickly and provides brief but intense odor.

Paste: Powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small pastilles. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called "Bukhoor" or "Bakhoor", is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made using this method. Within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, raw frankincense is ground into a fine powder and then mixed with various sweet-smelling essential oils.

 

DIRECT-BURNING:

 

Direct-burning incense, also called "combustible incense", is lit directly by a flame. The glowing ember on the incense will continue to smoulder and burn the rest of the incense without further application of external heat or flame. Direct-burning incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odourless binder. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types are commonly encountered, though direct-burning incense can take nearly any form, whether for expedience or whimsy.

 

Coil: Extruded and shaped into a coil without a core, coil incense can burn for an extended period, from hours to days, and is commonly produced and used in Chinese cultures.

 

Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively quickly. Incense cones were invented in Japan in the 1800s.

Cored stick: A supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores. This type of incense is commonly produced in India and China. When used in Chinese folk religion, these are sometimes known as "joss sticks".

Dhoop or solid stick: With no bamboo core, dhoop incense is easily broken for portion control. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.

 

Powder: The loose incense powder used for making indirect burning incense is sometimes burned without further processing. Powder incense is typically packed into long trails on top of wood ash using a stencil and burned in special censers or incense clocks.

Paper: Paper infused with incense, folded accordion style, is lit and blown out. Examples include Carta d'Armenia and Papier d'Arménie.

Rope: The incense powder is rolled into paper sheets, which are then rolled into ropes, twisted tightly, then doubled over and twisted again, yielding a two-strand rope. The larger end is the bight, and may be stood vertically, in a shallow dish of sand or pebbles. The smaller (pointed) end is lit. This type of incense is easily transported and stays fresh for extremely long periods. It has been used for centuries in Tibet and Nepal.

 

Moxa tablets, which are disks of powdered mugwort used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion, are not incenses; the treatment is by heat rather than fragrance.

Incense sticks may be termed joss sticks, especially in parts of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Among ethnic Chinese and Chinese-influenced communities these are traditionally burned at temples, before the threshold of a home or business, before an image of a religious divinity or local spirit, or in shrines, large and small, found at the main entrance of every village. Here the earth god is propitiated in the hope of bringing wealth and health to the village. They can also be burned in front of a door or open window as an offering to heaven, or the devas. The word "joss" is derived from the Latin deus (god) via the Portuguese deos through the Javanese dejos, through Chinese pidgin English.

 

PRODUCTION:

 

The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.

 

Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:

 

Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.

Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.

Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.

Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.

Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.

 

"Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.

 

Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

 

Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.

 

In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:

 

Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.

Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The thin sticks are evenly separated, then dipped into a tray of incense powder consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant-based binder. The dry incense powder is then tossed and piled over the sticks while they are spread apart. The sticks are then gently rolled and packed to maintain roundness while more incense powder is repeatedly tossed onto the sticks. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. Incense sticks produced in this fashion and burned in temples of Chinese folk religion can have a thickness between 2 and 4 millimeters.

Compression: A damp powder is mechanically formed around a cored stick by compression, similar to the way uncored sticks are formed. This form is becoming more common due to the higher labor cost of producing powder-coated or paste-rolled sticks.

 

BURNING INCENSE:

 

Indirect-burning incense burned directly on top of a heat source or on a hot metal plate in a censer or thurible.

 

In Japan a similar censer called a egōro (柄香炉) is used by several Buddhist sects. The egōro is usually made of brass, with a long handle and no chain. Instead of charcoal, makkō powder is poured into a depression made in a bed of ash. The makkō is lit and the incense mixture is burned on top. This method is known as sonae-kō (religious burning).

 

For direct-burning incense, the tip or end of the incense is ignited with a flame or other heat source until the incense begins to turn into ash at the burning end. The flame is then fanned or blown out, leaving the incense to smolder.

 

CULTURAL VARIATIONS:

 

ARABIAN:

 

In most Arab countries, incense is burned in the form of scented chips or blocks called bakhoor (Arabic: بخور‎ [bɑˈxuːɾ, bʊ-]. Incense is used on special occasions like weddings or on Fridays or generally to perfume the house. The bakhoor is usually burned in a mabkhara, a traditional incense burner (censer) similar to the Somali Dabqaad. It is customary in many Arab countries to pass bakhoor among the guests in the majlis ('congregation'). This is done as a gesture of hospitality.

 

CHINESE:

 

For over two thousand years, the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Traditional Chinese medicine, and daily life. Agarwood (chénxiāng) and sandalwood (tánxiāng) are the two most important ingredients in Chinese incense.

 

Along with the introduction of Buddhism in China came calibrated incense sticks and incense clocks. The first known record is by poet Yu Jianwu (487-551): "By burning incense we know the o'clock of the night, With graduated candles we confirm the tally of the watches." The use of these incense timekeeping devices spread from Buddhist monasteries into Chinese secular society.

Incense-stick burning is an everyday practice in traditional Chinese religion. There are many different types of stick used for different purposes or on different festive days. Many of them are long and thin. Sticks are mostly coloured yellow, red, or more rarely, black. Thick sticks are used for special ceremonies, such as funerals. Spiral incense, with exceedingly long burn times, is often hung from temple ceilings. In some states, such as Taiwan,

 

Singapore, or Malaysia, where they celebrate the Ghost Festival, large, pillar-like dragon incense sticks are sometimes used. These generate so much smoke and heat that they are only burned outside.

 

Chinese incense sticks for use in popular religion are generally odorless or only use the slightest trace of jasmine or rose, since it is the smoke, not the scent, which is important in conveying the prayers of the faithful to heaven. They are composed of the dried powdered bark of a non-scented species of cinnamon native to Cambodia, Cinnamomum cambodianum. Inexpensive packs of 300 are often found for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Though they contain no sandalwood, they often include the Chinese character for sandalwood on the label, as a generic term for incense.

 

Highly scented Chinese incense sticks are used by some Buddhists. These are often quite expensive due to the use of large amounts of sandalwood, agarwood, or floral scents used. The sandalwood used in Chinese incenses does not come from India, its native home, but rather from groves planted within Chinese territory. Sites belonging to Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Shan, Dharma Drum Mountain, Xingtian Temple, or City of Ten Thousand Buddhas do not use incense.

 

INDIAN:

 

Incense sticks, also known as agarbathi (or agarbatti) and joss sticks, in which an incense paste is rolled or moulded around a bamboo stick, are the main forms of incense in India. The bamboo method originated in India, and is distinct from the Nepali/Tibetan and Japanese methods of stick making without bamboo cores. Though the method is also used in the west, it is strongly associated with India.

 

The basic ingredients are the bamboo stick, the paste (generally made of charcoal dust and joss/jiggit/gum/tabu powder – an adhesive made from the bark of litsea glutinosa and other trees), and the perfume ingredients - which would be a masala (spice mix) powder of ground ingredients into which the stick would be rolled, or a perfume liquid sometimes consisting of synthetic ingredients into which the stick would be dipped. Perfume is sometimes sprayed on the coated sticks. Stick machines are sometimes used, which coat the stick with paste and perfume, though the bulk of production is done by hand rolling at home. There are about 5,000 incense companies in India that take raw unperfumed sticks hand-rolled by approximately 200,000 women working part-time at home, and then apply their own brand of perfume, and package the sticks for sale. An experienced home-worker can produce 4,000 raw sticks a day. There are about 50 large companies that together account for up to 30% of the market, and around 500 of the companies, including a significant number of the main ones, including Moksh Agarbatti and Cycle Pure, are based in Mysore.

 

JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM:

 

KETORET:

 

Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and is stated in the Book of Exodus to be a mixture of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense.

 

TIBETAN:

 

Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to kusum flower, ashvagandha, and sahi jeera.

 

Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

 

JAPANESE:

 

In Japan incense appreciation folklore includes art, culture, history, and ceremony. It can be compared to and has some of the same qualities as music, art, or literature. Incense burning may occasionally take place within the tea ceremony, just like calligraphy, ikebana, and scroll arrangement. The art of incense appreciation, or koh-do, is generally practiced as a separate art form from the tea ceremony, and usually within a tea room of traditional Zen design.

 

Agarwood (沈香 Jinkō) and sandalwood (白檀 byakudan) are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. It is also used in the Japanese tea ceremony. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.

 

Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara (伽羅). Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.

 

Some terms used in Japanese incense culture include:

 

Incense arts: [香道, kodo]

Agarwood: [ 沈香 ] – from heartwood from Aquilaria trees, unique, the incense wood most used in incense ceremony, other names are: lignum aloes or aloeswood, gaharu, jinko, or oud.

Censer/Incense burner: [香爐] – usually small and used for heating incense not burning, or larger and used for burning

Charcoal: [木炭] – only the odorless kind is used.

Incense woods: [ 香木 ] – a naturally fragrant resinous wood.

 

USAGE:

 

PRACTICAL:

 

Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other less desirable odours. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. An example, as well as of religious use, is the giant Botafumeiro thurible that swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

 

A similar utilitarian use of incense can be found in the post-Reformation Church of England. Although the ceremonial use of incense was abandoned until the Oxford Movement, it was common to have incense (typically frankincense) burned before grand occasions, when the church would be crowded. The frankincense was carried about by a member of the vestry before the service in a vessel called a 'perfuming pan'. In iconography of the day, this vessel is shown to be elongated and flat, with a single long handle on one side. The perfuming pan was used instead of the thurible, as the latter would have likely offended the Protestant sensibilities of the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

The regular burning of direct-burning incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve multiple senses.

 

Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other irritating, distracting, or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner. Currently, more effective pyrethroid-based mosquito repellent incense is widely available in Asia.

 

Papier d'Arménie was originally sold as a disinfectant as well as for the fragrance.

 

Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors and do not want the smell to linger.

 

AESTHETIC:

 

Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the foregoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the aroma. An example is the kōdō (香道), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formal setting.

 

RELIGIOUS:

 

Religious use of incense is prevalent in many cultures and may have roots in the practical and aesthetic uses, considering that many of these religions have little else in common. One common motif is incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity. Such use was common in Judaic worship and remains in use for example in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese jingxiang (敬香 "offer incense), etc.

 

Aphrodisiac Incense has been used as an aphrodisiac in some cultures. Both ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology suggest the usage of incense by goddesses and nymphs. Incense is thought to heighten sexual desires and sexual attraction.

 

Time-keeper Incense clocks are used to time social, medical and religious practices in parts of eastern Asia. They are primarily used in Buddhism as a timer of mediation and prayer. Different types of incense burn at different rates; therefore, different incense are used for different practices. The duration of burning ranges from minutes to months.

 

Healing stone cleanser Incense is claimed to cleanse and restore energy in healing stones. The technique used is called “smudging” and is done by holding a healing stone over the smoke of burning incense for 20 to 30 seconds. Some people believe that this process not only restores energy but eliminates negative energy.

 

HEALTH RISK FROM INCENSE SMOKE:

 

Incense smoke contains various contaminants including gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and adsorbed toxic pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and toxic metals). The solid particles range between ~10 and 500 nm. In a comparison, Indian sandalwood was found to have the highest emission rate, followed by Japanese aloeswood, then Taiwanese aloeswood, while Chinese smokeless sandalwood had the least.

 

Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke.

 

A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant.

 

In contrast, epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya, and several other centers found: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified their findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."

 

Although several studies have not shown a link between incense and lung cancer, many other types of cancer have been directly linked to burning incense. A study published in 2008 in the medical journal Cancer found that incense use is associated with a statistically significant higher risk of cancers of the upper respiratory tract, with the exception of nasopharyngeal cancer. Those who used incense heavily also were 80% more likely to develop squamous-cell carcinomas. The link between incense use and increased cancer risk held when the researchers weighed other factors, including cigarette smoking, diet and drinking habits. The research team noted that "This association is consistent with a large number of studies identifying carcinogens in incense smoke, and given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke from burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications."

 

In 2015, the South China University of Technology found toxicity of incense to Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells to be even higher than cigarettes.

 

Incensole acetate, a component of Frankincense, has been shown to have anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like effects in mice, mediated by activation of poorly-understood TRPV3 ion channels in the brain.

It's about 5 inches wide and may have been manufactured in the 1950's.

 

Incense is aromatic biotic material that releases fragrant smoke when burned. The term refers to the material itself, rather than to the aroma that it produces. Incense is used for aesthetic reasons, and in therapy, meditation, and ceremony. It may also be used as a simple deodorant or insectifuge.

 

Incense is composed of aromatic plant materials, often combined with essential oils. The forms taken by incense differ with the underlying culture, and have changed with advances in technology and increasing number of uses.

 

Incense can generally be separated into two main types: "indirect-burning" and "direct-burning". Indirect-burning incense (or "non-combustible incense") is not capable of burning on its own, and requires a separate heat source. Direct-burning incense (or "combustible incense") is lit directly by a flame and then fanned or blown out, leaving a glowing ember that smoulders and releases a smoky fragrance. Direct-burning incense is either a paste formed around a bamboo stick, or a paste that is extruded into a stick or cone shape.

 

HISTORY

The word incense comes from Latin incendere meaning "to burn".

 

Combustible bouquets were used by the ancient Egyptians, who employed incense in both pragmatic and mystical capacities. Incense was burnt to counteract or obscure malodorous products of human habitation, but was widely perceived to also deter malevolent demons and appease the gods with its pleasant aroma. Resin balls were found in many prehistoric Egyptian tombs in El Mahasna, giving evidence for the prominence of incense and related compounds in Egyptian antiquity. One of the oldest extant incense burners originates from the 5th dynasty. The Temple of Deir-el-Bahari in Egypt contains a series of carvings that depict an expedition for incense.

 

The Babylonians used incense while offering prayers to divining oracles. Incense spread from there to Greece and Rome.

 

Incense burners have been found in the Indus Civilization (3300–1300 BCE). Evidence suggests oils were used mainly for their aroma. India also adopted techniques from East Asia, adapting the formulation to encompass aromatic roots and other indigenous flora. This was the first usage of subterranean plant parts in incense. New herbs like Sarsaparilla seeds, frankincense, and cypress were used by Indians.

 

At around 2000 BCE, Ancient China began the use of incense in the religious sense, namely for worship. Incense was used by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times and became more widespread in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The earliest documented use of incense comes from the ancient Chinese, who employed incense composed of herbs and plant products (such as cassia, cinnamon, styrax, and sandalwood) as a component of numerous formalized ceremonial rites. Incense usage reached its peak during the Song dynasty with numerous buildings erected specifically for incense ceremonies.

 

Brought to Japan in the 6th century by Korean Buddhist monks, who used the mystical aromas in their purification rites, the delicate scents of Koh (high-quality Japanese incense) became a source of amusement and entertainment with nobles in the Imperial Court during the Heian Era 200 years later. During the 14th-century Ashikaga shogunate, a samurai warrior might perfume his helmet and armor with incense to achieve an aura of invincibility (as well as to make a noble gesture to whoever might take his head in battle). It wasn't until the Muromachi period during the 15th and 16th century that incense appreciation (kōdō) spread to the upper and middle classes of Japanese society.

 

COMPOSITION

A variety of materials have been used in making incense. Historically there has been a preference for using locally available ingredients. For example, sage and cedar were used by the indigenous peoples of North America. Trading in incense materials comprised a major part of commerce along the Silk Road and other trade routes, one notably called the Incense Route.

 

Local knowledge and tools were extremely influential on the style, but methods were also influenced by migrations of foreigners, such as clergy and physicians.

 

COMBUSTIBLE BASE

The combustible base of a direct burning incense mixture not only binds the fragrant material together but also allows the produced incense to burn with a self-sustained ember, which propagates slowly and evenly through an entire piece of incense with such regularity that it can be used to mark time. The base is chosen such that it does not produce a perceptible smell. Commercially, two types of incense base predominate:

 

Fuel and oxidizer mixtures: Charcoal or wood powder provides the fuel for combustion while an oxidizer such as sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate sustains the burning of the incense. Fragrant materials are added to the base prior to shaping, as in the case of powdered incense materials, or after, as in the case of essential oils. The formula for charcoal-based incense is superficially similar to black powder, though it lacks the sulfur.

Natural plant-based binders: Gums such as Gum Arabic or Gum Tragacanth are used to bind the mixture together. Mucilaginous material, which can be derived from many botanical sources, is mixed with fragrant materials and water. The mucilage from the wet binding powder holds the fragrant material together while the cellulose in the powder combusts to form a stable ember when lit. The dry binding powder usually comprises about 10% of the dry weight in the finished incense. These include:

Makko (incense powder) made from the bark of various trees in the genus Persea (such as Persea thunbergii)

Xiangnan pi (made from the bark of trees of genus Phoebe such as Phoebe nanmu or Persea zuihoensis.

Jigit: a resin based binder used in India

Laha or Dar: bark based powders used in Nepal, Tibet, and other East Asian countries.

 

Typical compositions burn at a temperature between 220 °C and 260 °C.

 

TYPES

Incense is available in various forms and degrees of processing. They can generally be separated into "direct-burning" and "indirect-burning" types. Preference for one form or another varies with culture, tradition, and personal taste. The two differ in their composition due to the former's requirement for even, stable, and sustained burning.

 

INDIRECT-BURNING

Indirect-burning incense, also called "non-combustible incense", is an aromatic material or combination of materials, such as resins, that does not contain combustible material and so requires a separate heat source. Finer forms tend to burn more rapidly, while coarsely ground or whole chunks may be consumed very gradually, having less surface area. Heat is traditionally provided by charcoal or glowing embers. In the West, the best known incense materials of this type are the resins frankincense and myrrh, likely due to their numerous mentions in the Bible. Frankincense means "pure incense", though in common usage refers specifically to the resin of the boswellia tree.

 

Whole: The incense material is burned directly in raw form on top of coal embers.

Powdered or granulated: Incense broken into smaller pieces burns quickly and provides brief but intense odor.

Paste: Powdered or granulated incense material is mixed with a sticky incombustible binder, such as dried fruit, honey, or a soft resin and then formed to balls or small pastilles. These may then be allowed to mature in a controlled environment where the fragrances can commingle and unite. Much Arabian incense, also called "Bukhoor" or "Bakhoor", is of this type, and Japan has a history of kneaded incense, called nerikō or awasekō, made using this method. Within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, raw frankincense is ground into a fine powder and then mixed with various sweet-smelling essential oils.

 

DIRECT-BURNING

Direct-burning incense, also called "combustible incense", is lit directly by a flame. The glowing ember on the incense will continue to smoulder and burn the rest of the incense without further application of external heat or flame. Direct-burning incense is either extruded, pressed into forms, or coated onto a supporting material. This class of incense is made from a moldable substrate of fragrant finely ground (or liquid) incense materials and odourless binder. The composition must be adjusted to provide fragrance in the proper concentration and to ensure even burning. The following types are commonly encountered, though direct-burning incense can take nearly any form, whether for expedience or whimsy.

 

Coil: Extruded and shaped into a coil without a core, coil incense can burn for an extended period, from hours to days, and is commonly produced and used in Chinese cultures.

 

Cone: Incense in this form burns relatively quickly. Incense cones were invented in Japan in the 1800s.

Cored stick: A supporting core of bamboo is coated with a thick layer of incense material that burns away with the core. Higher-quality variations have fragrant sandalwood cores. This type of incense is commonly produced in India and China. When used in Chinese folk religion, these are sometimes known as "joss sticks".

Dhoop or solid stick: With no bamboo core, dhoop incense is easily broken for portion control. This is the most commonly produced form of incense in Japan and Tibet.

Powder: The loose incense powder used for making indirect burning incense is sometimes burned without further processing. Powder incense is typically packed into long trails on top of wood ash using a stencil and burned in special censers or incense clocks.

Paper: Paper infused with incense, folded accordion style, is lit and blown out. Examples include Carta d'Armenia and Papier d'Arménie.

Rope: The incense powder is rolled into paper sheets, which are then rolled into ropes, twisted tightly, then doubled over and twisted again, yielding a two-strand rope. The larger end is the bight, and may be stood vertically, in a shallow dish of sand or pebbles. The smaller (pointed) end is lit. This type of incense is easily transported and stays fresh for extremely long periods. It has been used for centuries in Tibet and Nepal.

 

Moxa tablets, which are disks of powdered mugwort used in Traditional Chinese medicine for moxibustion, are not incenses; the treatment is by heat rather than fragrance.

Incense sticks may be termed joss sticks, especially in parts of East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Among ethnic Chinese and Chinese-influenced communities these are traditionally burned at temples, before the threshold of a home or business, before an image of a religious divinity or local spirit, or in shrines, large and small, found at the main entrance of every village. Here the earth god is propitiated in the hope of bringing wealth and health to the village. They can also be burned in front of a door or open window as an offering to heaven, or the devas. The word "joss" is derived from the Latin deus (god) via the Portuguese deos through the Javanese dejos, through Chinese pidgin English.

 

PRODUCTION

The raw materials are powdered and then mixed together with a binder to form a paste, which, for direct burning incense, is then cut and dried into pellets. Incense of the Athonite Orthodox Christian tradition is made by powdering frankincense or fir resin, mixing it with essential oils. Floral fragrances are the most common, but citrus such as lemon is not uncommon. The incense mixture is then rolled out into a slab approximately 1 cm thick and left until the slab has firmed. It is then cut into small cubes, coated with clay powder to prevent adhesion, and allowed to fully harden and dry. In Greece this rolled incense resin is called 'Moskolibano', and generally comes in either a pink or green colour denoting the fragrance, with pink being rose and green being jasmine.

 

Certain proportions are necessary for direct-burning incense:

 

Oil content: an excess of oils may prevent incense from smoldering effectively. Resinous materials such as myrrh and frankincense are typically balanced with "dry" materials such as wood, bark and leaf powders.

Oxidizer quantity: Too little oxidizer in gum-bound incense may prevent the incense from igniting, while too much will cause the incense to burn too quickly, without producing fragrant smoke.

Binder: Water-soluble binders such as "makko" ensure that the incense mixture does not crumble when dry, dilute the mixture.

Mixture density: Incense mixtures made with natural binders must not be combined with too much water in mixing, or over-compressed while being formed, which would result in either uneven air distribution or undesirable density in the mixture, causing the incense to burn unevenly, too slowly, or too quickly.

Particulate size: The incense mixture has to be well pulverized with similarly sized particulates. Uneven and large particulates result in uneven burning and inconsistent aroma production when burned.

 

"Dipped" or "hand-dipped" direct-burning incense is created by dipping "incense blanks" made of unscented combustible dust into any suitable kind of essential or fragrance oil. These are often sold in the United States by flea-market and sidewalk vendors who have developed their own styles. This form of incense requires the least skill and equipment to manufacture, since the blanks are pre-formed in China or South East Asia.

 

Incense mixtures can be extruded or pressed into shapes. Small quantities of water are combined with the fragrance and incense base mixture and kneaded into a hard dough. The incense dough is then pressed into shaped forms to create cone and smaller coiled incense, or forced through a hydraulic press for solid stick incense. The formed incense is then trimmed and slowly dried. Incense produced in this fashion has a tendency to warp or become misshapen when improperly dried, and as such must be placed in climate-controlled rooms and rotated several times through the drying process.

 

Traditionally, the bamboo core of cored stick incense is prepared by hand from Phyllostachys heterocycla cv. pubescens since this species produces thick wood and easily burns to ashes in the incense stick. In a process known as "splitting the foot of the incense stick", the bamboo is trimmed to length, soaked, peeled, and split in halves until the thin sticks of bamboo have square cross sections of less than 3mm. This process has been largely replaced by machines in modern incense production.

 

In the case of cored incensed sticks, several methods are employed to coat the sticks cores with incense mixture:

 

Paste rolling: A wet, malleable paste of incense mixture is first rolled into a long, thin coil, using a paddle. Then, a thin stick is put next to the coil and the stick and paste are rolled together until the stick is centered in the mixture and the desired thickness is achieved. The stick is then cut to the desired length and dried.

Powder-coating: Powder-coating is used mainly to produce cored incense of either larger coil (up to 1 meter in diameter) or cored stick forms. A bundle of the supporting material (typically thin bamboo or sandalwood slivers) is soaked in water or a thin water/glue mixture for a short time. The thin sticks are evenly separated, then dipped into a tray of incense powder consisting of fragrance materials and occasionally a plant-based binder. The dry incense powder is then tossed and piled over the sticks while they are spread apart. The sticks are then gently rolled and packed to maintain roundness while more incense powder is repeatedly tossed onto the sticks. Three to four layers of powder are coated onto the sticks, forming a 2 mm thick layer of incense material on the stick. The coated incense is then allowed to dry in open air. Additional coatings of incense mixture can be applied after each period of successive drying. Incense sticks produced in this fashion and burned in temples of Chinese folk religion can have a thickness between 2 and 4 millimeters.

Compression: A damp powder is mechanically formed around a cored stick by compression, similar to the way uncored sticks are formed. This form is becoming more common due to the higher labor cost of producing powder-coated or paste-rolled sticks.

 

BURNING INCENSE

Indirect-burning incense burned directly on top of a heat source or on a hot metal plate in a censer or thurible.

 

In Japan a similar censer called a egōro (柄香炉) is used by several Buddhist sects. The egōro is usually made of brass, with a long handle and no chain. Instead of charcoal, makkō powder is poured into a depression made in a bed of ash. The makkō is lit and the incense mixture is burned on top. This method is known as sonae-kō (religious burning).

 

For direct-burning incense, the tip or end of the incense is ignited with a flame or other heat source until the incense begins to turn into ash at the burning end. The flame is then fanned or blown out, leaving the incense to smolder.

 

CULTURAL VARIATIONS

ARABIAN

In most Arab countries, incense is burned in the form of scented chips or blocks called bakhoor (Arabic: بخور‎ [bɑˈxuːɾ, bʊ-]. Incense is used on special occasions like weddings or on Fridays or generally to perfume the house. The bakhoor is usually burned in a mabkhara, a traditional incense burner (censer) similar to the Somali Dabqaad. It is customary in many Arab countries to pass bakhoor among the guests in the majlis ('congregation'). This is done as a gesture of hospitality.

 

CHINESE

For over two thousand years, the Chinese have used incense in religious ceremonies, ancestor veneration, Traditional Chinese medicine, and daily life. Agarwood (chénxiāng) and sandalwood (tánxiāng) are the two most important ingredients in Chinese incense.

 

Along with the introduction of Buddhism in China came calibrated incense sticks and incense clocks. The first known record is by poet Yu Jianwu (487-551): "By burning incense we know the o'clock of the night, With graduated candles we confirm the tally of the watches." The use of these incense timekeeping devices spread from Buddhist monasteries into Chinese secular society.

Incense-stick burning is an everyday practice in traditional Chinese religion. There are many different types of stick used for different purposes or on different festive days. Many of them are long and thin. Sticks are mostly coloured yellow, red, or more rarely, black. Thick sticks are used for special ceremonies, such as funerals. Spiral incense, with exceedingly long burn times, is often hung from temple ceilings. In some states, such as Taiwan,

 

Singapore, or Malaysia, where they celebrate the Ghost Festival, large, pillar-like dragon incense sticks are sometimes used. These generate so much smoke and heat that they are only burned outside.

 

Chinese incense sticks for use in popular religion are generally odorless or only use the slightest trace of jasmine or rose, since it is the smoke, not the scent, which is important in conveying the prayers of the faithful to heaven. They are composed of the dried powdered bark of a non-scented species of cinnamon native to Cambodia, Cinnamomum cambodianum. Inexpensive packs of 300 are often found for sale in Chinese supermarkets. Though they contain no sandalwood, they often include the Chinese character for sandalwood on the label, as a generic term for incense.

 

Highly scented Chinese incense sticks are used by some Buddhists. These are often quite expensive due to the use of large amounts of sandalwood, agarwood, or floral scents used. The sandalwood used in Chinese incenses does not come from India, its native home, but rather from groves planted within Chinese territory. Sites belonging to Tzu Chi, Chung Tai Shan, Dharma Drum Mountain, Xingtian Temple, or City of Ten Thousand Buddhas do not use incense.

 

INDIAN

Incense sticks, also known as agarbathi (or agarbatti) and joss sticks, in which an incense paste is rolled or moulded around a bamboo stick, are the main forms of incense in India. The bamboo method originated in India, and is distinct from the Nepali/Tibetan and Japanese methods of stick making without bamboo cores. Though the method is also used in the west, it is strongly associated with India.

 

The basic ingredients are the bamboo stick, the paste (generally made of charcoal dust and joss/jiggit/gum/tabu powder – an adhesive made from the bark of litsea glutinosa and other trees), and the perfume ingredients - which would be a masala (spice mix) powder of ground ingredients into which the stick would be rolled, or a perfume liquid sometimes consisting of synthetic ingredients into which the stick would be dipped. Perfume is sometimes sprayed on the coated sticks. Stick machines are sometimes used, which coat the stick with paste and perfume, though the bulk of production is done by hand rolling at home. There are about 5,000 incense companies in India that take raw unperfumed sticks hand-rolled by approximately 200,000 women working part-time at home, and then apply their own brand of perfume, and package the sticks for sale. An experienced home-worker can produce 4,000 raw sticks a day. There are about 50 large companies that together account for up to 30% of the market, and around 500 of the companies, including a significant number of the main ones, including Moksh Agarbatti and Cycle Pure, are based in Mysore.

 

JEWISH TEMPLE IN JERUSALEM

KETORET

Ketoret was the incense offered in the Temple in Jerusalem and is stated in the Book of Exodus to be a mixture of stacte, onycha, galbanum and frankincense.

 

TIBETAN

Tibetan incense refers to a common style of incense found in Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan. These incenses have a characteristic "earthy" scent to them. Ingredients vary from cinnamon, clove, and juniper, to kusum flower, ashvagandha, and sahi jeera.

 

Many Tibetan incenses are thought to have medicinal properties. Their recipes come from ancient Vedic texts that are based on even older Ayurvedic medical texts. The recipes have remained unchanged for centuries.

 

JAPANESE

In Japan incense appreciation folklore includes art, culture, history, and ceremony. It can be compared to and has some of the same qualities as music, art, or literature. Incense burning may occasionally take place within the tea ceremony, just like calligraphy, ikebana, and scroll arrangement. The art of incense appreciation, or koh-do, is generally practiced as a separate art form from the tea ceremony, and usually within a tea room of traditional Zen design.

 

Agarwood (沈香 Jinkō) and sandalwood (白檀 byakudan) are the two most important ingredients in Japanese incense. Agarwood is known as "jinkō" in Japan, which translates as "incense that sinks in water", due to the weight of the resin in the wood. Sandalwood is one of the most calming incense ingredients and lends itself well to meditation. It is also used in the Japanese tea ceremony. The most valued Sandalwood comes from Mysore in the state of Karnataka in India.

 

Another important ingredient in Japanese incense is kyara (伽羅). Kyara is one kind of agarwood (Japanese incense companies divide agarwood into 6 categories depending on the region obtained and properties of the agarwood). Kyara is currently worth more than its weight in gold.

 

Some terms used in Japanese incense culture include:

 

Incense arts: [香道, kodo]

Agarwood: [ 沈香 ] – from heartwood from Aquilaria trees, unique, the incense wood most used in incense ceremony, other names are: lignum aloes or aloeswood, gaharu, jinko, or oud.

Censer/Incense burner: [香爐] – usually small and used for heating incense not burning, or larger and used for burning

Charcoal: [木炭] – only the odorless kind is used.

Incense woods: [ 香木 ] – a naturally fragrant resinous wood.

 

USAGE

PRACTICAL

Incense fragrances can be of such great strength that they obscure other less desirable odours. This utility led to the use of incense in funerary ceremonies because the incense could smother the scent of decay. An example, as well as of religious use, is the giant Botafumeiro thurible that swings from the ceiling of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It is used in part to mask the scent of the many tired, unwashed pilgrims huddled together in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

 

A similar utilitarian use of incense can be found in the post-Reformation Church of England. Although the ceremonial use of incense was abandoned until the Oxford Movement, it was common to have incense (typically frankincense) burned before grand occasions, when the church would be crowded. The frankincense was carried about by a member of the vestry before the service in a vessel called a 'perfuming pan'. In iconography of the day, this vessel is shown to be elongated and flat, with a single long handle on one side. The perfuming pan was used instead of the thurible, as the latter would have likely offended the Protestant sensibilities of the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

The regular burning of direct-burning incense has been used for chronological measurement in incense clocks. These devices can range from a simple trail of incense material calibrated to burn in a specific time period, to elaborate and ornate instruments with bells or gongs, designed to involve multiple senses.

 

Incense made from materials such as citronella can repel mosquitoes and other irritating, distracting, or pestilential insects. This use has been deployed in concert with religious uses by Zen Buddhists who claim that the incense that is part of their meditative practice is designed to keep bothersome insects from distracting the practitioner. Currently, more effective pyrethroid-based mosquito repellent incense is widely available in Asia.

 

Papier d'Arménie was originally sold as a disinfectant as well as for the fragrance.

 

Incense is also used often by people who smoke indoors and do not want the smell to linger.

 

AESTHETIC

Many people burn incense to appreciate its smell, without assigning any other specific significance to it, in the same way that the foregoing items can be produced or consumed solely for the contemplation or enjoyment of the aroma. An example is the kōdō (香道), where (frequently costly) raw incense materials such as agarwood are appreciated in a formal setting.

 

RELIGIOUS

Religious use of incense is prevalent in many cultures and may have roots in the practical and aesthetic uses, considering that many of these religions have little else in common. One common motif is incense as a form of sacrificial offering to a deity. Such use was common in Judaic worship and remains in use for example in the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, Taoist and Buddhist Chinese jingxiang (敬香 "offer incense), etc.

 

Aphrodisiac Incense has been used as an aphrodisiac in some cultures. Both ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian mythology suggest the usage of incense by goddesses and nymphs. Incense is thought to heighten sexual desires and sexual attraction.

 

Time-keeper Incense clocks are used to time social, medical and religious practices in parts of eastern Asia. They are primarily used in Buddhism as a timer of mediation and prayer. Different types of incense burn at different rates; therefore, different incense are used for different practices. The duration of burning ranges from minutes to months.

 

Healing stone cleanser Incense is claimed to cleanse and restore energy in healing stones. The technique used is called “smudging” and is done by holding a healing stone over the smoke of burning incense for 20 to 30 seconds. Some people believe that this process not only restores energy but eliminates negative energy.

 

HEALTH RISK FROM INCENSE SMOKE

Incense smoke contains various contaminants including gaseous pollutants, such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur oxides (SOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and adsorbed toxic pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and toxic metals). The solid particles range between ~10 and 500 nm. In a comparison, Indian sandalwood was found to have the highest emission rate, followed by Japanese aloeswood, then Taiwanese aloeswood, while Chinese smokeless sandalwood had the least.

 

Research carried out in Taiwan in 2001 linked the burning of incense sticks to the slow accumulation of potential carcinogens in a poorly ventilated environment by measuring the levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene) within Buddhist temples. The study found gaseous aliphatic aldehydes, which are carcinogenic and mutagenic, in incense smoke.

 

A survey of risk factors for lung cancer, also conducted in Taiwan, noted an inverse association between incense burning and adenocarcinoma of the lung, though the finding was not deemed significant.

 

In contrast, epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society, Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya, and several other centers found: "No association was found between exposure to incense burning and respiratory symptoms like chronic cough, chronic sputum, chronic bronchitis, runny nose, wheezing, asthma, allergic rhinitis, or pneumonia among the three populations studied: i.e. primary school children, their non-smoking mothers, or a group of older non-smoking female controls. Incense burning did not affect lung cancer risk among non-smokers, but it significantly reduced risk among smokers, even after adjusting for lifetime smoking amount." However, the researchers qualified their findings by noting that incense burning in the studied population was associated with certain low-cancer-risk dietary habits, and concluded that "diet can be a significant confounder of epidemiological studies on air pollution and respiratory health."

 

Although several studies have not shown a link between incense and lung cancer, many other types of cancer have been directly linked to burning incense. A study published in 2008 in the medical journal Cancer found that incense use is associated with a statistically significant higher risk of cancers of the upper respiratory tract, with the exception of nasopharyngeal cancer. Those who used incense heavily also were 80% more likely to develop squamous-cell carcinomas. The link between incense use and increased cancer risk held when the researchers weighed other factors, including cigarette smoking, diet and drinking habits. The research team noted that "This association is consistent with a large number of studies identifying carcinogens in incense smoke, and given the widespread and sometimes involuntary exposure to smoke from burning incense, these findings carry significant public health implications."

 

In 2015, the South China University of Technology found toxicity of incense to Chinese hamsters' ovarian cells to be even higher than cigarettes.

 

Incensole acetate, a component of Frankincense, has been shown to have anxiolytic-like and antidepressive-like effects in mice, mediated by activation of poorly-understood TRPV3 ion channels in the brain.

© Eric Lafforgue

www.ericlafforgue.com

Photo taken in Victoria Park for the event of Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance 2012.

 

Quoted from Wiki about the story :

 

"For the three nights straddling the Mid-Autumn festival, visitors can also see the spectacular Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance. It's a 67-metre-long 'fire dragon' that winds its way with much fanfare and smoke through a collection of streets located in Tai Hang, close to Victoria Park in Causeway Bay. The Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance started in 1880 when Tai Hang was a small Hakka village of farmers and fishermen on the waterfront of Causeway Bay. This custom has been followed every year since 1880, with the exception of the Japanese Occupation and during the 1967 disturbances.

 

According to local legend, over a century ago, a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, a typhoon and then a plague wreaked havoc on the village. While the villagers were repairing the damage, a python entered the village and ate their livestock. According to some villagers, the python was the son of the Dragon King. A soothsayer decreed the only way to stop the chaos was to stage a fire dance for three days and nights during the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The villagers made a huge dragon of straw and covered it with incense sticks, which they then lit. Accompanied by drummers and erupting firecrackers, they danced for three days and three nights – and the plague disappeared."

 

Below link is 2009 version :

www.flickr.com/photos/anthonyleungkc/3987569384/in/set-72...

 

Camera for the photo : Olympus OM-D E-M5

Lens for the photo : M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm f/1.8

Incense sticks, seen in a Chinese temple in Bangkok

It has been yet another wet and cold Sunday afternoon here in England, so I had an hour to have a play with my camera.... This shot is pretty much SOOC using an 85mm f/1.8 lens with off camera flash covered with an amber gel and of course the obligatory incense stick.....

 

Thanks for looking and I hope you like it.

 

Looks great on Black ~ L View on black

 

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Contact Me | Recent uploads | Follow me on Facebook | Website

 

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Thanks for dropping by....

This is the photo I have on my about.me profile, I have played a lot with this incense sticks... they seem "little people chatting" as someone said to me...

 

This photo appears in the magazine DP - Arte Fotográfica nº 37, page 29.

Photographing smoke trails gives some weird and wonderful shapes and patterns. When this is combined with photoshop, it is surprising what can be achieved. An abstract smoke trail image. Original photograph manipulated and coloured in photoshop.

Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.

  

Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.

Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).

  

Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).

Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).

  

History

Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.

In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.

In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.

  

Hemis Festival

The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.

The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.

  

The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.

Source: Wikipedia and others.

Next day, on 12th of October, in the morning we visited Hemis Monastery again for a detailed study. This time I photographed many of the mural paintings and some fine wooden works inside the monastery. Many of the paintings reflected an unique mixing of Hinduism and Buddhism.

     

Hemis Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (gompa) of the Drukpa Lineage, located in Hemis, Ladakh, India. Situated 45 km from Leh, in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century and was re-established in 1672 by the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal. The annual Hemis festival honoring Padmasambhava is held here in early June.

   

Terma and tertöns : The essence of Tebetan Buddhism.

 

Padmasambhava (lit. "Lotus-Born"), also known as Guru Rinpoche, is a literary character of terma (Terma or "hidden treasure"- are key Tibetan Buddhist teaching, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts, in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuous revelation in Tibetan Buddhism. Termas are a part of Tantric Literature. Tradition holds that terma may be a physical object such as a text or ritual implement that is buried in the ground (or earth), hidden in a rock or crystal, secreted in a herb, or a tree, hidden in a lake (or water), or hidden in the sky (space). Though a literal understanding of terma is "hidden treasure", and sometimes objects are hidden away, the teachings associated should be understood as being “concealed within the mind of the guru”, that is, the true place of concealment is in the tertön's mindstream. If the concealed or encoded teaching or object is a text, it is often written in dakini script: a non-human type of code or writing).

     

Terma is an emanation of Amitabha (Amitābha or Amideva, is a celestial buddha described in the scriptures of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism. Amitābha is the principal buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia, while in Vajrayana Amitābha is known for his longevity attribute, magnetising red fire element, the aggregate of discernment, pure perception and the deep awareness of emptiness of phenomena. According to these scriptures, Amitābha possesses infinite merits resulting from good deeds over countless past lives as a bodhisattva named Dharmakāra. "Amitābha" is translatable as "Infinite Light," hence Amitābha is also called "The Buddha of Immeasurable Life and Light" ).

 

Terma that is said to appear to tertons (A tertön is a discoverer of ancient texts or terma in Tibetan Buddhism) in visionary encounters and a focus of Tibetan Buddhist practice (Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, Mongolia, Tuva, Bhutan, Kalmykia and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, and India (particularly in Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh, Dharamsala, Lahaul and Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. It is also practiced in Northeast China. Religious texts and commentaries are contained in the Tibetan Buddhist canon such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. The Tibetan diaspora has spread Tibetan Buddhism to many Western countries, where the tradition has gained popularity. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million).

   

History

 

Hemis Monastery existed before the 11th century. Naropa, the pupil of the yogi Tilopa, and teacher of the translator Marpa is connected with this monastery. A translation was made by A. Grünwedel (Nӑro und Tilo,: Festschrift Ernst Kuhn, München 1916) of Naropa's biography that was found in Hemis monastery.

 

In this manuscript Naropa (or Naro) meets the "dark blue" (Skr.: nila: dark blue or black) Tilopa (or Tillo), a tantric master, who gives Naropa 12 "great" and 12 "small" tasks to do in order to enlighten him to the inherent emptiness/illusoriness of all things. Naropa is depicted as the "abbott of Nalanda" (F. Wilhelm, Prüfung und Initiation im Buche Pausya und in der Biographie des Naropa, Wiesbaden 1965, p. 70), the university-monastery in today's Bihar, India, that flourished until the sacking by Turkish and Afghan Muslim forces. This sacking must have been the driving force behind Naropa's peregrination in the direction of Hemis. After Naropa and Tilopa met in Hemis they travelled back in the direction of a certain monastery in the now no longer existing kingdom of Maghada, called Otantra which has been identified as today's Otantapuri. Naropa is consered the founding father of the Kagyu-lineage of the Himalayan esoteric Buddhism. Hence Hemis is the main seat of the Kagyu lineage of Buddhism.

 

In 1894 Russian journalist Nicolas Notovitch claimed Hemis as the origin of an otherwise unknown gospel, the Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men, in which Jesus is said to have traveled to India during his "lost years." According to Notovitch, the work had been preserved in the Hemis library, and was shown to him by the monks there while he was recuperating from a broken leg. But once his story had been re-examined by historians, Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence. Bart D. Ehrman states that "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax". However, the Indian Pandit Swami Abhedananda also claims to have read the same manuscript, and published his account of viewing it after his visit to Hemis in 1921. Abhedananda claims on the book jacket that it was translated for him with the help of a "local Lama interpreter." In the same vein, Notovich did not initially translate the manuscript, but reported his Sherpa guide did so as Notovitch could not read the original text. Notovich's version of the manuscript was translated from Tibetan to Russian to French to English. According to Swami Abhedananda's account, his Lama's translation was equivalent to the one published by Notovich. The Gutenberg Project has published the entire manuscript as a free ebook.

   

Hemis Festival

 

The Hemis Festival is dedicated to Lord Padmasambhava (Guru Rimpoche) venerated as the Dance Performance at Hemis Monastery representative reincarnate of Buddha. He is believed to have been born on the 10th day of the fifth month of the Monkey year as predicted by the Buddha Shakyamuni. It is also believed that his life mission was, and remains, to improve the spiritual condition of all living beings. And so on this day, which comes once in a cycle of 12 years, Hemis observes a major extravaganza in his memory. The observance of these sacred rituals is believed to give spiritual strength and good health. The Hemis festival takes place in the rectangular courtyard in front of the main door of the monastery. The space is wide and open save two raised square platforms, three feet high with a sacred pole in the center. A raised dias with a richly cushioned seat with a finely painted small Tibetan table is placed with the ceremonial items - cups full of holy water, uncooked rice, tormas made of dough and butter and incense sticks. A number of musicians play the traditional music with four pairs of cymbals, large-pan drums, small trumpets and large size wind instruments. Next to them, a small space is assigned for the lamas to sit.

 

The ceremonies begin with an early morning ritual atop the Gompa where, to the beat of drums and the resounding clash of cymbals and the spiritual wail of pipes, the portrait of "Dadmokarpo" or "Rygyalsras Rimpoche" is then ceremoniously put on display for all to admire and worship.

 

The most esoteric of festivities are the mystic mask dances. The Mask Dances of Ladakh are referred collectively as chams Performance. Chams performance is essentially a part of Tantric tradition, performed only in those gompas which follow the Tantric Vajrayana teachings and the monks perform tantric worship.

 

Source: Wikipedia and others.

Lantau Island | Hong Kong

Burning incense sticks in Lin Po Monastery Temple