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Main
Incense Store
Incense From Around the Planet
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Namaste!
Incense
is a kind of "mental stimulant" which can transform the
ordinary into the very special!
I
have assembled a unique collection of Incense that I have personally
burned over many, many years.
I do not offer domestic hand-dipped toxic incense but the highest
quality
imported handrolled, handmade champas and masalas.
Along with my incense I also offer smudge sticks and accessories.
censors, ash catchers, and more!
All
of our smudge sticks
are created by the Tewa tribe-The Taos Pueblo People-New Mexico.
Harvested with the seasons and pruned for the coming year.
Read-The
History of Incense
HERE!
Main
Incense Store
Imported-Stick-Incense
Imported
Incense Assortment's
To learn more about Incense,
it’s history and properties, scroll down and also please visit
The Tao of Incense.
OM,
Shanthi, Shakti, OM
LionHeart
August 2012
Whenever
Beauty looks,
Love is also there;
Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek
Love lights Her fire from that flame.
When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night
Love comes and finds a heart
entangled in tresses.
Beauty and Love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.
They have together
since the beginning of time-
Side by side, step by step.
-Rumi-
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Premier
Assortments
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Nag
Champa Products
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Premier
Imported Incense
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Tibetan
Incense
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Quality
Dhoop Incense
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Nepalese
Incense
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Shanthamalai
'Red' Nag Champa
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Incense
Censors & Burners
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Smudge
Sticks & Accessories
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INCENSE
Incense, has been known to mankind
for centuries.
It is unlikely primitive man would have missed that certain woods
had more pleasing aromas and indeed varying emotional effects.
Incense artifacts, thousands of years old, have been found throughout
the world,
and appear to be a part of virtually every culture.
The connection between incense, religions, medicine,
and shaman practices is obvious, it would be impossible to separate
them,
or say which proceeded the other.
Historically it is difficult to trace because it has always been
largely an esoteric and oral tradition evolving in relation to both
religion and medicine.
Incense has appeared in many forms:
raw woods, chopped herbs, pastes, powders, and even liquids or oils.
What most of us think of as incense today is joss-sticks or cones.
Cones as we know them were an invention of the Japanese
and introduced at the World's Fair in Chicago in the late 1800's.
We cannot say, at this time, when the Joss Stick or Masala incense
first appeared.
We do know that it was brought to China by Buddhist monk's around
200 bce.
Herbal Incense from the Ancients
Herbal incense is blended primarily for effect.
Scent is the secondary consideration in many cases,
but in "all" cases, the scent is designed for the burn.
Many natural incense ingredients have almost no aroma until they are
heated.
Notably, Aloes wood as well as many other resins have little or no
aroma
until they are smoldered over the incense fire.
Incense and Herbalism go hand-in-hand, and the oldest sources
we have regarding herbalism and incense is the Indian Vedas.
The primary references are in the Athar-vaveda and the Rigveda.
This is commonly considered the first phase of Ayurveda
and deals with the subject in a more magical and religious approach
to healing.
Examination of early Vedic texts indicates that the herbalists,
or healers were a second tier of Hindu priest that emerged out of
the agrarian areas.
They appear to have assimilated their knowledge of herbalism
with the rituals and beliefs of the orthodox or "Sacrificial"
priests.
However, there remained two distinct classes and were scorned in the
later days
of this phase by the sacrificial priests who considered them unclean
because of their association and medical treatment of all classes
of people.
Around 200 bce. They were excluded by law from participating in sacred
rites.
Even before this, the medical priests had begun associating with
wandering mendicants and ascetics who were renouncing sacrificial
rites and orthodoxy,
and among these were the Buddhist or bhikkhus.
Pali sources indicate that the Buddhists were the principal means
by which these emerging physicians organized, developed and disseminated
their emerging art.
This begins the classical phase of Ayurveda and the great healer Atreya
emerges among others at the medical university at Taxila.
Among his students were Jivaku (Buddha's Physician).
Later, Brahmanization of certain medical texts amends the heterodox
practices
in light of a more orthodox view,
and Buddhist medicine appears to split with Ayurveda.
From this point, incense evolves in both traditions in association
with medicine and herbal remedies, and becomes even more
a closely guarded secret passed down primarily in the oral tradition
and apprenticeship.
Some Incense Ingredients
Breaking down the five elements and their Ayurvedic
relationship
to plants and common incense ingredients we find them falling into
five classes.
The following chart shows the relationship:
1. Ether (Fruits) Star Anise
2. Water (Stems & Branches) Sandalwood, Aloeswood, Cedarwood,
, Cassia, Frankincense, Myrrh, Borneol
3. Earth (Roots) Turmeric, Vetivert, Ginger, Costus Root, Valerian,
Spikenard
4. Fire (flower) Clove
5. Air (leaves) Patchouli
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