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.
Water-grinding the cypress base
Hand water-grinding, developed under the guidance of Tibetan medicine, turns debarked cypress lengths into paste — the most fundamental and demanding operation of the craft.
Matching aromatics by Tibetan medical theory
The cypress paste is kneaded with dozens of aromatics including musk and white sandalwood, and the combination follows Tibetan medical theory rather than taste alone.
Extruding sticks through a horn
The scented paste is pressed through a horn into sticks, their gauge set by the bore; even pressure and steady speed keep the sticks straight.
Two or three days of sun-drying
The formed sticks dry in the sun for two or three days: too little leaves them soft, too much lets the aroma escape, so the interval is kept strictly at both monasteries and household workshops.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Tibetan incense of the Mozhugongka area centers on Drigung Til Monastery as the hub of both its transmission and the restoration of production; in recent years, thanks to the monastery's efforts, incense production has been preliminarily restored, but it still requires protection and support. The monastery provides both the transmission of the formulas and the actual occasion of offering incense in Buddhist worship, which has long bound the use of incense to the daily lives of monks and nuns. Mozhugongka and Nyemo both belong to the Tibetan incense production system of Tibet, and the difference between the two lies mainly in the Tibetan medical reasoning and herbal practice on which their formulas are based: both places use cypress trunk as the principal ingredient, and both insist on hand water-milling and several days of sun-drying, but the Mozhugongka branch derives from a monastic tradition, and the use of its incense is more concentrated on Buddha-offering occasions. 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; 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. In the course of its spread, each locality diverged according to its local products and monastic rules, and the Mozhugongka branch is one of these. The representative inheritor Tsering Phuntsok was born in May 1946 in Mozhugongka County, Tibet Autonomous Region; he is a representative inheritor of the Tibetan incense-making technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the third national-level batch, and an incense-making technician, and he now actively trains successors. The state of survival of this branch shows that the institutions through which Tibetan incense is transmitted and learned today are more often monasteries and the elderly craftsmen within them than the market; because the raw materials are scarce and very few monks have mastered the incense formulas, without sustained instruction the formulas would disappear together with the people who hold them.
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 Phuntsok (from the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Tibetan ethnicity, born in May 1946, from Mozhugongka County, Tibet Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of the Tibetan incense-making technique, a national-level intangible cultural heritage item in the third national-level batch. Incense-making technician. He now actively trains successors. The value of the Tibetan incense-making technique is concentrated in two points. First, it compounds its raw materials on the basis of Tibetan medicine, and the incense is credited with such effects as dispelling disease and warding off misfortune, calming the mind and sharpening the intellect, purifying the air, and sterilizing and disinfecting; historically it was burned mainly by eminent monks and great lamas when worshipping the Buddha, so its range of use was extremely limited. Second, it transforms the mountain forest products of Tibet (cypress and aromatics) into everyday articles bearing both religious and medical significance, and is thus material evidence of the way of life on the plateau. 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; because the raw materials are scarce and very few monks have mastered the incense formulas, Tibetan incense is on the verge of being lost - a judgment that applies equally to Mozhugongka and Nyemo.
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
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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