Bai Juyi: Poet
Bai Juyi (Tang), one of the key figures in the history of Chinese Incense Culture(香学).
Bai Juyi · Tang
Identity:Poet
Representative Incense Works / Incense Matters:Incense-themed Poems
Bai Juyi's poems often depict burning incense, incense cages, and the incense of monks' quarters ("Before the altar beneath the gauze lantern, I keep the fast by day and sit in meditation by night," "The red lantern first rises as the moon wheel climbs high, illuminating ten thousand peach blossoms before the hall") accompanied by incense. His leisurely poems link incense with Zen and with the mind of aging and withdrawal, and are representative of the daily incense matters of the Tang people.
and Chinese Incense Culture(香学)
Seen through Bai Juyi, Chinese Incense Culture(香学) is not an isolated craft, but a process in which generations of literati and artisans continually documented, systematized, and spiritualized olfactory experience. Only by understanding these sages can one understand the weight of that wisp of incense in hand today.
Representative Incense Formulas · Incense Poems · Incense Discourses
Incense Poems"Palace Lyrics"
"Her beauty not yet faded, his favor already cut off; she leans against the incense warmer and sits till dawn." — A neglected palace lady spends the night leaning by the incense warmer burning incense, capturing the loneliness of the deep palace. The incense warmer was an ancient incense vessel used for scenting clothes and keeping warm.
Incense Poems"Sleeping on an Autumn Rainy Night"
"Embers linger in the warmed bottle's fire; incense added, the quilt-warming basket." It depicts an old man burning incense and warming his quilt on an autumn rainy night—a leisurely calm, another kind of serene realm in Bai's poetry of "incense and fire as companions."