Tibetan Incense Making Craftsmanship

01 · Historical Records

Tibetan incense is traditionally said to have been created in the 7th century CE by Thonmi Sambhota, a minister of Songtsen Gampo, and it has a history of more than 1,300 years.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo was a devout Buddhist. In order to enshrine the two life-size statues of the Buddha - one at the age of 12 and one at the age of 8, which Shakyamuni himself had consecrated during his lifetime and which had been brought from Chang'an and Nepal - Songtsen Gampo charged his minister Thonmi Sambhota with developing incense for offering to the Buddha. Guided by Tibetan medicine, Thonmi Sambhota carefully developed the hand water-mill incense-making technique, and from then on Tibetan incense began to spread to various places. The traditional Tibetan incense-making technique uses several dozen kinds of aromatic materials, such as cypress trunks, musk, and white sandalwood, as its raw ingredients. In production, the cypress trunk is first sawn into a number of short sections and peeled, then ground into cypress paste by a waterwheel; this paste is kneaded together with the various aromatics; the cypress paste mixed with the aromatics is then pressed into shape inside an ox horn; and after two to three days of drying in the sun, the Tibetan incense is finished. Tibetan incense is credited with such effects as dispelling disease and warding off misfortune, calming the mind and sharpening the intellect, purifying the air, sterilizing and disinfecting, promoting human metabolism, strengthening immune function, repelling insects, and preventing epidemic diseases. Historically, however, it was burned mainly by eminent monks and great lamas when worshipping the Buddha, so its range of use was extremely limited. Because the raw materials are scarce and very few monks have mastered the incense formulas, Tibetan incense was on the verge of being lost.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The transmission of Tibetan incense in Nyemo County is integrated with the local monasteries and villages. The representative inheritor Tenzin Chodrag was immersed in the incense culture of Nyemo from childhood, and successively and humbly took as his teachers a number of folk incense craftsmen of Nyemo: the great khenpo Tenzin Suiba and Tunba Namgyal, renowned incense makers of the Ruba Monastery in Nyemo; Jiegala of Nyemo Township; and Sela, a descendant of the divine physician of the Ruba Monastery in Nyemo. After several years of study and practice he mastered the production steps of Nyemo incense and began to complete incense making on his own; he is both the successor to the traditional formulas of the Ruba Monastery and a pupil of the household craft of Nyemo Township. From the standpoint of raw materials, the Tibetan incense of Nyemo is directly tied to the cypress resources of the mountains: sawing the cypress trunk into sections, peeling it, grinding it into paste with a waterwheel, and then kneading it together with the various aromatics - this is the local approach, distinct from compounding incense purely from medicinal herbs. Traditionally, Tibetan incense was burned mainly by eminent monks and great lamas when worshipping the Buddha, and its range of use was extremely limited; the formulas were therefore long held by monks and a few elderly craftsmen. For this reason as well, the incense formulas and production technique still bear a pronounced master-apprentice character to this day, and the Ruba Monastery in Nyemo and similar places remain important venues of instruction. The commercial changes of the modern era have carried this craft out of the monastery. In his early years Tsering, whose family's economic circumstances were poor, took up incense making as a sideline to support his household; he went to study with elderly craftsmen nearby who made incense, and they taught him the compounding technique without reserve. Through gradual experimentation in practice, the incense he produced was of fine quality and soon could be sold on the market alongside that made by the old craftsmen. In 2006 Tenzin Chodrag registered the "Nyemo Gubao" (Nyemo Ancient Treasure) incense trademark; in 2008 he established the Nyemo Tibetan Incense Factory; and in 2010 he founded the Tibet Nyemo Gubao Trading Co., Ltd. in Nyemo County, integrating the development, transmission, production, and sale of Nyemo Tibetan incense, while actively passing on his craft and training more than ten inheritors of the Nyemo incense-making technique. Nyemo Tibetan incense has thereby found a development path that relies on the trademark and the factory while still taking oral transmission between master and apprentice as its core.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Tibetan Incense Making Craftsmanship · Tibetan Incense Making Craftsmanship.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

In recent years, thanks to the efforts of Drigung Til Monastery in Mozhugongka County, Tibet Autonomous Region, incense production has been preliminarily restored, but it still requires protection and support. Tsering (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Tibetan ethnicity, born in May 1956, from Nyemo County, Tibet Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of the Tibetan incense-making technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fourth national-level batch. Incense-making technician. In his early years, because his family's economic circumstances were poor, he took up incense making as a sideline to support his household; he went to learn from elderly craftsmen nearby who made incense, and they taught him the compounding technique without reserve. Through gradual experimentation in practice, the incense he made was of fine quality and soon could be sold on the market alongside that produced by the old craftsmen. All of these apprentices are able to make Tibetan incense independently. Tenzin Chodrag (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Tibetan ethnicity, born in January 1979, from Nyemo County, Tibet Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of the Tibetan incense-making technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the fifth national-level batch. Incense-making technician. From childhood he was immersed in the incense culture of Nyemo, and he successively and humbly took as his teachers a number of folk incense craftsmen of Nyemo: the great khenpo Tenzin Suiba and Tunba Namgyal, renowned incense makers of the Ruba Monastery in Nyemo; Jiegala of Nyemo Township; and Sela, a descendant of the divine physician of the Ruba Monastery in Nyemo. After several years of study and practice, he mastered the production steps of Nyemo incense and began to complete incense making on his own. From 1998 to 2002 he received training at the Tibetan Medical College in Tibet. In 2006 he registered the "Nyemo Gubao" incense trademark, in 2008 he established the Nyemo Tibetan Incense Factory, and in 2010 he founded the Tibet Nyemo Gubao Trading Co., Ltd. in Nyemo County, integrating the development, transmission, production, and sale of Nyemo Tibetan incense. He actively passes on his craft and has trained more than ten inheritors of the Nyemo incense-making technique.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Cirenpingcuo 03-1407
• Ciren 04-1901
• Danzengquzha 05-2837
• Dangqudanzeng

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Tibetan Incense Making Craftsmanship (Nimu, Tibet) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Ciren · National Representative Bearer Archive
3. Danzengquzha · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗