The Twenty-Eight Volumes of Xiang Cheng · Volume-by-Volume Interpretation
One Xiang Cheng is half the history of incense. Open each volume and see how Zhou Jiazhou turned incense into a scholarly discipline.
Zhou Jiazhou of the Ming dynasty devoted more than twenty years to compiling Xiang Cheng in twenty-eight volumes and over ninety thousand characters, collecting more than six hundred incense formulas; it is the most complete and comprehensive masterpiece in the history of Chinese incense culture(香学). The Siku Tiyao remarks: "Those who read about incense matters indeed find nothing more detailed or complete than this."
The Twenty-Eight-Volume System
Incense Categories I · Agarwood of Various Countries
The first volume is devoted to agarwood, distinguishing varieties by place of origin (Cochinchina, Champa, Chenla, Hainan, Siam, etc.), with detailed discussion of sinking grade, raw结, ripe结, yellow-ripe, stack...
Incense Categories II · Sandalwood, Musk, and Borneol
Records famous incenses such as sandalwood (white sandalwood, red sandalwood), musk, borneol, and ambergris, distinguishing authenticity, place of origin, and grade, and establishing the four great famous incenses of "agarwood, sandalwood, musk, and borneol"...
Incense Products III: Floral and Herbal Fragrances
Compiles floral fragrances such as orchid, jasmine, osmanthus, and rose, along with herbal fragrances such as linglingxiang, maoxiang, and huicao, recording their nature, flavor, and methods of burning, providing later generations with the basis for "blending..."
Incense Products IV: Wood, Fruit, and Vegetable Fragrances
Records woody, fruit, and vegetable aromatic materials such as gansong, maoxiang, fennel, aged tangerine peel, and lychee shell, expanding the breadth of materials used in blended incense and embodying the principle that "no fragrance is unusable..."
Incense Products V: Continued Record
Supplements aromatic materials not covered in the previous four volumes, examining alternative names and distinguishing forms and colors, making the catalog of incense products more complete—the high point of "materia-medica-style" organization in incense culture(香学)....
Buddhist Incenses
Specially records incense used in Buddhist scriptures and monasteries: sandalwood, ox-head sandalwood, smearing incense, burning incense, offerings before the Buddha, and incense rituals in the precepts—the most systematic treatment of "incense in Buddhist scriptures"..."
Palace Incenses
Records palace incense use through the ages: the pepper chambers of the Han palace, the censers of the Tang Daming Palace, and the imperially bestowed aromatic medicines of the Song court, reflecting the aspect of incense as a symbol of ritual and power....
Marvelous Incenses
Collects strange and wondrous incense lore: supernatural fragrances and legends such as soul-returning incense, thousand-step incense, tuyuan incense, and cold-repelling incense, preserving the vein of imagination and the strange in incense culture....
Incense Matters, Category One
Compiles incense-history allusions by category: burning incense, scenting clothes, bed-curtain incense, seal incense, and others, grouped by topic, establishing the genre of the "classified compendium of incense matters."...
Incense Matters, Separate Record One
Continues recording incense allusions not included in the categories, citing widely to supplement what the formal histories omit....
Incense Matters, Category Two
Further expanded categories of incense matters: incense testing, incense appreciation, incense banquets, elegant gatherings of incense friends, and other literati incense practices.…
Miscellaneous Records of Incense Matters II
Additional anecdotes of incense matters, along with incense-related subjects in poetry and inscriptions.…
Classification of Incense Matters III
Compiled stories of incense interrelated with festivals, domestic living, and the four arts of the qin, chess, calligraphy, and painting.…
Miscellaneous Records of Incense Matters III
Supplementary records of various incense matters among monks and recluses, in the women's quarters, and at the frontier.…
Classification of Incense Matters IV
Collected historical accounts of incense as related to medicine and health cultivation.…
Miscellaneous Records of Incense Matters IV
Concluding the allusions of incense matters, comprehensively gathering those not previously covered.…
Incense Remnants I · Incense Prose
A collection of incense rhapsodies, eulogies, and inscriptions from successive dynasties (such as the "Rhapsody on Incense" and the "Rhapsody on the Boshan Censer"), a dedicated anthology of "the literature of incense," reflecting literati aesthetic expressions of incense…
Incense Remnants II · Incense Poetry
A compilation of poems and lyrics on incense, with poems arranged by author, complementing the channel's "Poems and Lyrics on Incense."…
Incense Remnants III · Incense Lyrics
Records Song and Ming lyrics on incense, noting works such as "the auspicious brainwood burns away in the golden beast" and "clothing of heart-shaped silk."…
Incense Addenda IV · Continued Record
Supplementing the lost incense texts, poems, and lyrics, concluding the Incense Addenda.…
Blending Methods for Myriad Wondrous Incenses I
Main body of incense formulas: records various formulas for seal incense, burning incense, and fumigating incense (such as Dingzhou Public Treasury Seal Incense and Xuanhe Imperial Incense), detailing the principles of sovereign, minister, assistant, and envoy and the methods of compounding.…
Blending Methods for Myriad Wondrous Incenses II
Continued record of court and literati incense formulas (Han Weigong's Rich Plum Incense, Laughing Orchid Incense, etc.).…
Blending Methods for Myriad Wondrous Incenses III
Records religious and health-preserving incense formulas (incense for offering to the Buddha, plague-preventing incense).…
Blending Methods for Myriad Wondrous Incenses IV
Continued record of incense formulas for the four seasons, festivals, and daily life.…
Blending Methods for Myriad Wondrous Incenses V
A compilation of famous ancient formulas (Huang Taishi's Pure True Incense, Lord Li of Jiangnan's Bedchamber Incense, Spring Message in Snow, etc.), serving as the main basis for modern recreations of ancient formulas.…
Incense of Self-Attainment
Dedicated to literati self-entertainment incenses such as seal incense (hundred-mark incense for timekeeping), bedchamber incense, clothes-fumigating incense, incense beads, and incense plaques, reflecting the Ming-dynasty taste of "incense as pure offering"…
Condensed Floral Incenses I
Records methods for imitating floral scents: using agarwood and sandalwood as the base, combined with jasmine, osmanthus, rose, and the like to restore their pure charm—the culminating craft of "imitative floral" incense blending.…
Blended Floral Fragrance II
Continuing the record of various formulas for blended floral fragrance, concluding the twenty-eight volumes of Xiang Cheng.…
Six Major Sections
Appreciation of Incense Materials (Volumes 1–5) · Religious and Court Incense Use (Volumes 6–7) · Incense Anecdotes and Allusions (Volumes 8–16) · Incense Literature and Poetry (Volumes 17–20) · Incense Formulas (Volumes 21–25) · Literati Purifying Offerings and Blended Floral Fragrance (Volumes 26–28).