The spiritual source of Chinese incense culture(香学) lies not in the censer, but in the herbs. Qu Yuan likened fragrant herbs to the noble man, founding the tradition of "fragrant herbs and the beauty"; earlier than him, the Shi Jing had already written orchid, pepper, and artemisia into its customs and emotions. Below, each herb is examined one by one for its source and meaning.
The Li Sao opens with "I draped myself with jiangli and picked zhi, and stitched autumn orchid to wear as a girdle," taking fragrant herbs as adornment, as ornament, as virtue. Below, each is examined and explained according to its frequency and representativeness in the poems.
| Fragrant herb | Source / Original text (excerpt) | Meaning and relation to incense culture(香学) |
|---|---|---|
| Orchid(orchid grass / ze lan) | Li Sao: "stitched autumn orchid to wear as a girdle"; Jiu Ge: "the Yuan has zhi, the Li has orchid" | The ancient "orchid" mostly referred to fragrant herbs of the ze lan type, not today's orchid flower. Wearing orchid showed purity, and it is the foundational note of "fragrant herbs and the beauty." |
| Hui | Li Sao: "How much more did I stitch hui and chai" | Hui is a fragrant herb with a clear, moist scent. Named together with chai, it symbolizes lofty purity. |
| Chai / zhi(Angelica dahurica) | Li Sao: "I draped myself with jiangli and picked zhi"; "mixed duheng with fragrant zhi" | Chai is zhi; Angelica dahurica was used in antiquity as both spice and medicine. "Picked zhi" means gathering zhi to wear. |
| Jiangli(Chuanxiong) | Li Sao: "I draped myself with jiangli and picked zhi" | Jiangli is Chuanxiong, a herbaceous fragrant herb that can be used medicinally. Paired with zhi, both are fragrances for adornment. |
| Magnolia | "Li Sao": "At dawn I plucked the magnolia on the slope" | A fragrant wood that does not die when stripped of bark, a metaphor for steadfast integrity. Later generations named incense and boats "magnolia" (mulan), all taking from its fragrance. |
| Shenjiao | "Li Sao": "Mixed with shenjiao and junqui" | Jiao is Sichuan pepper; the ancients regarded it as fragrant and used it in sacrifice. "Shenjiao" means pepper in abundance. |
| Junqui | "Li Sao": "Mixed with shenjiao and junqui" | Junqui, a fragrant wood (or possibly a type of cinnamon), ranked alongside pepper as fragrant. Later "cinnamon" (rougui) entered incense and medicine, its origin here. |
| Xinyi | "Jiu Ge": "Xinyi for the lintel, angelica for the chamber" | Xinyi, the flower bud of the magnolia family, with a pungent, warm fragrance. Using xinyi for a door lintel is the imagining of building a room from fragrant wood. |
| Sun / Quan(stream sun) | "Li Sao": "Quan does not examine my inner feelings"; "Jiu Ge": "Why is sun so sorrowful" | Quan is stream sun, a fragrant herb. Qu Yuan used it to stand for the ruler and for the worthy, the ultimate personification of the "fragrant herb." |
| Miwu | "Jiu Ge": "Autumn orchid and miwu" | Miwu, the seedling of chuanxiong; the ancients regarded it as a fragrant herb, and it is also used in medicine. |
| Durou | "Jiu Ge": "I gather durou on the fragrant isle" | Durou, a fragrant herb, a metaphor for the fragrance gathered to give to the one I long for. |
| Duheng / Duheng | "Li Sao": "Mixed with duheng and fragrant angelica"; "Jiu Ge": "Clad in shilan, girdled with duheng" | Duheng, a fragrant herb that can be worn. Named together with shilan, it describes the adornment of the mountain spirit. |
| Liuyi / Jieche | "Li Sao": "I planted a bed of liuyi and jieche" | Liuyi and jieche are both fragrant herbs. The word "qi" (planted in beds) refers to the garden cultivation of fragrant herbs. |
| Shilan | "Nine Songs": "Clad in shilan, girdled with duheng" | Shilan is the orchid that grows on rocks, a metaphor for hidden fragrance. |
The Book of Songs predates the Songs of Chu; its fragrant herbs appear mostly in local customs, romantic thoughts, and sacrificial rites, with less weight on "moral comparison," yet more of the fragrance of daily life.
| Fragrant herb | Source / Original text (excerpt) | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Lan (jian) | "Odes of Zheng, Zhen and Wei": "Young men and women alike hold jian in hand" | Jian is lan (orchid). On the Shangsi Festival, men and women held orchids to ward off evil—the earliest pairing of fragrance and festival custom. |
| Pepper | "Odes of Tang, Pepper Cluster": "The fruit of the pepper cluster, abundant and filling the measure" | Sichuan pepper bears dense fruit, a metaphor for many offspring. The pepper chamber and pepper wine both derive from this. |
| Xiao(fragrant mugwort) | "Odes of Wang, Gathering Ge": "She gathers xiao; one day without seeing her is like three autumns" | Xiao is fragrant mugwort, pungent and strong in scent. Gathering xiao as a gift binds fragrance to longing. |
| Fan(white mugwort) | "Odes of Shao, Gathering Fan": "Where does one gather fan? In the marshes and on the islets" | Fan is white mugwort, used in sacrificial rites. Fragrant herbs entering sacrifice dates back to the Zhou. |
| Xuancao(Xuan) | "Wei Feng · Bo Xi": "Where can I find the xuancao? I plant it behind the house." | Xuancao is the daylily, the herb that banishes sorrow. Fragrant herbs were linked with emotions, initiating the tradition of "fragrant herbs as metaphor for feeling." |
From the "bingjian" (holding the orchid) and "cai xiao" (picking mugwort) of the Book of Songs, to the "ren qiu lan" (threading autumn orchids) and "mixing shenjiao with jun'gui" of the Li Sao, and onward to the agarwood and borneol in Song dynasty censers—Chinese incense culture has a clear lineage:
When reading of fragrant herbs, one should look back at the agarwood in the censer—what you burn is not a piece of wood, but the echo of three thousand years of "comparing virtue to fragrance."
The following Q&A is compiled from this site's content for quick reference; descriptions of incense materials' medicinal properties reflect traditional understanding only and do not constitute medical advice.
Common ones include orchid, hui, jiangli, zhi, duheng, xinyi, magnolia, chrysanthemum, and mugwort. The ancients used fragrant herbs to express character, forming the tradition of "fragrant herbs and beautiful women."
They mainly symbolize moral cultivation and noble character, as when Qu Yuan declared his resolve to cultivate himself with "draping jiangli and pizhi." This is also the earliest spiritual source of Chinese incense culture.
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