First, the answer: Hong Chu's Incense Manual and Chen Jing's The Chen Family Incense Manual stand one before the other in the lineage of Song dynasty incense manuals—the Hong manual was completed in the Northern Song and is the earliest surviving systematic monograph on incense culture(香学), its merit lying in "establishing the categories"; the Chen manual was completed at the end of the Song and the beginning of the Yuan, in four volumes, its merit lying in "gathering the many schools." Simply put: to trace origins, read the Hong manual; to look up allusions and incense formulas, read the Chen manual; to actually reconstruct ancient incense, one relies mainly on the Chen manual and the Xiangcheng that follows it. The two books are not competitors but relay runners.
Key Points
- Hong Chu's Incense Manual: Northern Song; the earliest surviving systematic monograph on incense culture(香学), divided into categories such as incense grades, incense marvels, incense matters, and incense methods, inaugurating the format of "discussing incense by category."
- Chen Jing's The Chen Family Incense Manual: late Song to early Yuan, four volumes, gathering incense matters from the Han and Tang onward; one of the most important precursors to the Xiangcheng.
- The Hong manual emphasizes "structure," the Chen manual emphasizes "scale"; the former is the skeleton, the latter the flesh and blood.
- The lineage is clear: Hong manual (Northern Song) → Chen manual (late Song to early Yuan) → Xiangcheng (Ming).
- Both books have textual variants in their transmitted editions: the original Hong manual suffered losses, and the volume divisions of the Chen manual differ slightly among various catalogues; cite the edition when quoting.
Hong Chu's Incense Manual.Hong Chu, courtesy name Jufu, a native of Nanchang in the Northern Song and a member of the Jiangxi poetry school. One detail is worth remembering:he was the nephew of Huang Tingjian. Huang Tingjian wrote the Ten Virtues of Incense, and Su Shi and Huang Tingjian exchanged gifts of incense and matching poems on many occasions—Hong Chu grew up in a kinship circle with an extremely high "density of incense matters," so the personal线索 for compiling an Incense Manual are all there.
Chen Jing's The Chen Family Incense Manual.Chen Jing, courtesy name Zizhong, a man of the late Song and early Yuan,his deeds are unknown. His biography is almost nowhere to be found in the histories; we know only that he compiled this book. This situation—"the man unseen in the histories, the book transmitted to this day"—is not rare among catalogue-type texts: the compiler was originally a gatherer in his study, not a figure of great deeds or pronouncements.
The survival states of the two books also differ. The original Hong manual had already suffered losses in transmission; the current editions are mostly based on collectanea such as the Baichuan Xuehai, with possible differences in volume divisions; the Chen manual is relatively intact, with the four-volume edition in general circulation.
| Comparison Item | The Hong Family Incense Manual | The Chen Family Incense Manual |
|---|---|---|
| Date of composition | Northern Song | Late Song to early Yuan |
| Author | Hong Chu (courtesy name Jufu), nephew of Huang Tingjian | Chen Jing (courtesy name Zizhong), deeds unknown |
| Number of volumes | Transmitted editions vary; mostly found as collectanea editions | Commonly circulated in four volumes |
| Structure | Divided into categories: incense grades, incense curiosities, incense matters, incense methods | Four volumes; the common edition generally follows the order of incense grades, incense matters, incense methods, and incense writings |
| Sources | Mainly based on the author's own observations and scattered earlier records | Extensively draws on earlier generations, including Hong's register and Ye Tinggui's Xiang Lu |
| Scale | Entries are concise and not numerous | Gathers incense matters from the Tang and Han dynasties onward, far richer than Hong's register |
| Main value | Pioneered the register format of "discussing incense by category" | Preserves a large number of incense formulas and anecdotes from the Tang dynasty onward |
One textual variant needs to be noted: this site'sChen Family Incense Register pagerecords that it "divides incense grades, incense curiosities, incense matters, incense methods, incense formulas, etc.," while theincense culture(香学) classics pageIt is recorded as "Volume One: Incense Products, Volume Two: Incense Matters, Volume Three: Incense Methods, Volume Four: Incense Writings."The two accounts originate from different records; here we follow the prevalent four-volume version while retaining the variant record. This is precisely the habit one should cultivate when reading catalog-type literature: when encountering discrepancies in volume divisions, first acknowledge the discrepancy, then consult the facsimile.
Before the Hong Pu, knowledge about incense was scattered across various types of books: materia medica texts discussed medicinal properties, geographical works discussed places of origin, notebooks discussed anecdotes, and medical formulas discussed combinations. No one had placed them within the same framework.
What Hong Chu did was to take scattered knowledge of aromaticsand for the first time incorporate it into the framework of a "pu" (treatise). According to the organization on this site's classical texts page, the transmitted Xiang Pu generally unfolds according to four headings:
How important are these four headings? Looking at later generations makes it clear—the Chen Pu followed and expanded them, and the section divisions of the twenty-eight volumes of the Xiang Cheng are still an enlarged version of this approach.The four words "products, marvels, matters, methods" upheld six hundred years of subsequent writing on incense culture(香学).
The Hong Pu also contains a definition of agarwood that has been repeatedly cited (selected translation):
"Agarwood comes from the mountains of the South Seas. Its heartwood is firm and black; placed in water, it sinks."
This is the Xiang Pu's most plain definition of agarwood: distinguishing its quality by "sinking in water," it heralded the later concept of "sinking grade." Defining a standard in a single sentence—this is the hand of a pioneer.
A note on editions by the way: the original text of the Hong Pu had already suffered losses in transmission; the currently transmitted versions are mostly based on collectanea such as the Baichuan Xuehai, and volume divisions may differ. Therefore, when citing the Hong Pu, it is best to specify the collectanea used—the order of entries differs among different collectanea versions, and writing only "Hong Chu's Xiang Pu says" without noting the edition will cause trouble for those who later seek to verify.
The problem Chen Jing faced was different from Hong Chu's. By the late Song, literature on incense matters had accumulated for over three hundred years; the problem was not "no framework" but "too much material, scattered too widely."
His approach was toA culmination of previous eras: beyond incense products, incense affairs, and incense formulas, it also incorporates poetry and incense writings, making it a veritable "catalog." According to this site'sChen's Incense Catalog page: its value lies in its "breadth"—it was the first to systematically compile scattered incense records from before the Song dynasty, preserving a large number of incense formulas (such as various types of printed incense and incense pills) and anecdotes from the Tang dynasty onward.
Wherein lies the breadth? Two directions, for example. First,the incense methods section is more detailed: printed incense, incense pills, incense cakes, and sealed incense—each process has entries, providing a direct basis for reconstructing ancient methods. Second,it incorporates incense writings: incense poems, incense rhapsodies, and incense inscriptions were formally compiled into the catalog, showing that "incense culture" was already regarded as an integral part of incense, no longer merely an appendage.
When Zhou Jiazhou compiled the Xiang Cheng, Chen's catalog was one of the most important sources.Without Chen's catalog as this "intermediate station," the Xiang Cheng could not have compiled over four hundred incense formulas by the late Ming.
To trace origins, read the Hong catalog.To learn how the "sinking grade" standard was first established, how aromatics were first classified, and where a certain anecdote originally came from, start with the Hong catalog. It is short, refined, and strongly source-oriented.
To look up anecdotes and incense formulas, read the Chen catalog.To find a specific formula or trace the ins and outs of a certain incense affair, the Chen catalog's coverage far exceeds the Hong catalog. It can be said that the Chen catalog is the "database" of Song-Yuan incense culture.
For practical reconstruction, read the Chen catalog and the Xiang Cheng together.Looking at the Chen catalog alone, processing details are sometimes vague; from volume twenty-one onward, the Xiang Cheng gives more complete descriptions of preparation, blending, and sealed storage. Only by comparing the two does a formula's feasibility become high. We have another article,"How to Read the Incense Formulas in the Xiang Cheng"which explains specific reading methods and can be read alongside.
One pitfall-avoidance reminder:the names of incense materials in the two books do not fully correspond to modern names. Linglingxiang was anciently called xuncao, and the scope of what sandalwood refers to differs between ancient and modern times. Before starting reconstruction, first check against thearomatics illustrated guideto verify modern names—don't apply today's medicinal materials to ancient formulas.
Both books belong to "pu-lu" (catalog/register) — the characteristic of this genre isheavy copying and mixed labeling. When reading, keep three things in mind:
These three rules are also the rules this site follows in making translations and annotations; for details seeTranslation and Annotation Principles: Variant Readings, Collation Notes, and Honest Labeling。
Have a formula from a Song pu that you'd like to try? You can first call 400-809-1913 to talk with us about ingredient combinations and substitutions of incense materials, so you don't buy materials only to find that one ingredient is missing from the processing stage.
Hong Chu's Xiangpu is earlier, completed in the Northern Song; it is the earliest extant systematic monograph on incense culture(香学). Chen Jing's Chenshi Xiangpu was completed at the end of the Song and beginning of the Yuan, about two hundred years later, and is an expanded and integrated work based on Hong's pu. The lineage is: Hong's pu → Chen's pu → Ming Zhou Jiagui's Xiangcheng.
The common edition is in four volumes, generally ordered as incense products, incense matters, incense methods, and incense writings; but various bibliographic records differ slightly, and some record divisions such as "incense products, incense anomalies, incense matters, incense methods, incense formulas." The two pages on this site differ slightly in wording because they are based on different bibliographic records, and these have been retained. For study, please rely on the photocopied critical edition.
Use the incense methods section of Chenshi Xiangpu as the basis and read it alongside the incense formulas from volume 21 onward of Xiangcheng — the former preserves the original form of Song-Yuan formulas, while the latter describes processing and storage more completely. In practice, you also need to pay attention to differences between ancient and modern names and realities of incense materials; verify the modern names before mixing ingredients.
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