Herbs: Liquidambar orientalis Styrax, benzoin resin, thyme, menthol, agarwood, white sandalwood, Muxiang (aucklandia root), clove, cyperus, frankincense, clove, Piper longum, atractylodes, Terminalia chebula. Unlike most incense on the market, ours is made from pure herbs and resins, and contain no synthetic fragrances, additives, or bamboo/charcoal stick underneath.
Taihe is based on a modified version of Song Dynasty pharmacologist Su Dongpo's fragrant herbal medicine formula, Su Hexiang Pills. This incense is predominantly derived from solid resins such as liquidambar orientalis and benzoin, which combined with aromatic herbs, create a highly refreshing combination to revitalize the mind and body.
This recipe uses styrax, benzoin, thyme, and menthol as leading herbs to open up and refresh the mind. It also utilizes agarwood and white sandalwood to promote qi and relieve pain, and disperse cold and fogginess. Muxiang (aucklandia root) and cyperus regulate qi and relieve low spirits, and additionally, harmonize the stomach. Frankincense, clove, and Piper longum are used as ministerial herbs to cool and relieve pain. Atractylodes removes dampness; while Terminalia chebula is warming and astringent. Together, they form an herbal formula which is fragrant and resuscitating, promoting qi and calming the nerves.
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The use of incense in Chinese medicine and culture is an ancient and long-standing practice. Chinese archaeologists have found remains of incense-burning pottery in excavations of the northeastern Chinese Hongshan culture dating back to 5,000 BC. The Book of Rites, which describes the social forms and ceremonial rites of the Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), observed that the “Zhou people held incense in high regard”. During the Shang (1,600-1046 BCE) and Zhou dynasties, incense was mainly used as a form of communication with ancestors and spirits—the ancient Chinese believed that the smoke from the incense would float up into the heavens, creating a bridge between the mundane and celestial realms. When paying tribute to the Gods, these ancient cultures would often use an aromatic plant called sweet wormwood (香蒿), while dried millet was burnt when supplicating the God’s for good harvests.
During the rule of the Chu Kingdom in southern China (700-200), a kingdom infamous for its shamanic beliefs and rituals, incense took on a new role as a powerful force wielded by shamanic priests to combat pestilence (what we might now think of as disease-causing pathogens) and evil spirits. During this early period, the Chinese did not yet have access to classic aromatics like frankincense, agarwood and sandalwood that arrived later from India and Persia; Chu shamans mainly used creeping fig (薜荔), cinnamon, rosemallow (芙蓉) and chinesemugwort to clear temples for the arrival of spirits and help bring themselves into communication with those spirits. Angelica dahurica (白芷) and magnolia flower (辛夷) were hung around doorways for similar purposes. The Chu also wore fragrant “incense sachets” to ward off evil spirits, pestilence and insects. The preferred herbs were angelica dahurica and Chinese joe-pye weed (佩蘭). The fragrant aroma of the Joe-pye weed was also thought to be able to cure skin diseases.
During the Han dynasty (200BCE-200CE) exploration and conquest westward led to the establishment of the silk road, through which several new aromatics were introduced to China from Persia and India, including dammar resin (龍腦香), pepper, agarwood, cloves, and storax balsam (蘇合香). This period marked the real birth of China’s burgeoning incense culture. At the Mawangdui excavation site which dates to the Han, incense sachets, incense pillows and incense burning pottery were discovered among the remains of unearthed corpses containing cinnamon, magnolia flower, sweet grass, Sichuan pepper and joe-pye weed. It is speculated that these aromatics were used to prevent disease and ward off evil. Perhaps even more significantly, the late Han story collection Stories of Emperor Han Wudi, contains a description of the Han emperor burning incense to suppress a pandemic that raged throughout his kingdom.
From the Wei to Tang dynasties (300-900~ CE), we start to see advanced application of incenses and herbal medicaments in the treatment of a wide variety of diseases. The fourth century Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergency, for instance, details inhaling the vapors of pokeweed root to alleviate mental illness, fermented black bean powder incense to alleviate cataracts and inhaling burning pepper to treat headaches. (Interestingly notesthat for left-side headaches, the smoke should be inhaled from the left nostril and likewise for right-side). During this period, the Chinese also began developing a theory of the healing mechanism of incense. They had already recognized that pathogens entered through the nose and mouth, thenceforth spreading to the head cavities, lungs and abdomen. They thus reasoned that the aromatics, which had a “penetrating and mobile” nature (走竄) could penetrate into these areas and neutralize the pathogen. Additionally, incense, due to its ethereal nature, was seen as a “purely yang substance” (純陽之物), this meant that it could serve as an antidote to “yin substances” like cold, dampness and evil spirits which settled and lodged in the interstices of the body.
From the Tang and Song dynasties onward, the use of aromatics in the treatment of respiratory diseases also became widely popular. The Tang dynasty physician Cui Zhi-ti, for instance, detailed using Honey-treated coltsfoot incense to cure a “30 year chronic cough”. Sun Simiao described using smoked ephedra inhaled through a bamboo pole to treat pain and swelling in the throat. Examples such as these abound throughout the post-Tang record. Indeed, in the Song dynasty, the use of inhaled aromatics was even put to use in the treatment of tuberculosis. The Effective Remedies notes that smoked valerian and figwort powder mixture was a powerful cure for tuberculosis. Treatments for mental illnesses using incense also became more elaborate and powerful. The exhaustive Ming Dynasty formula compendium Formulas for Universal Relief details an incense used to treat severe mental illness.
There are also various accounts of the medical use of incense in Chinese courts—one, in which a foreign envoy from Ruoshui presents the emperor with pellets of incense, which, at first glance, fail to impress due to their ordinariness. However, when the entire palace
falls seriously ill for several days, the foreign envoy pleads for the incense to be burned: it successfully expelled the disease, curing everyone in the palace within the same day, and its aroma was so far-reaching that everyone inside the city could smell it for three months.
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