The common incense everywhere burned by poor people before Buddhist
icons is called _an-soku-kō_. This is very cheap. Great quantities of
it are burned by pilgrims in the bronze censers set before the
entrances of famous temples; and in front of roadside images you may
often see bundles of it. These are for the use of pious wayfarers, who
pause before every Buddhist image on their path to repeat a brief
prayer and, when possible, to set a few rods smouldering at the feet of
the statue. But in rich temples, and during great religious ceremonies,
much more expensive incense is used. Altogether three classes of
perfumes are employed in Buddhist rites: _kō_, or incense-proper, in
many varieties—(the word literally means only “fragrant
substance”);—_dzukō_, an odorous ointment; and _makkō_, a fragrant
powder. _Kō_ is burned; _dzukō_ is rubbed upon the hands of the priest
as an ointment of purification; and _makkō_ is sprinkled about the
sanctuary. This _makkō_ is said to be identical with the
sandalwood-powder so frequently mentioned in Buddhist texts. But it is
only the true incense which can be said to bear an important relation
to the religious service.
“Incense,” declares the _Soshi-Ryaku_,[1] “is the Messenger of Earnest
Desire. When the rich Sudatta wished to invite the Buddha to a repast,
he made use of incense. He was wont to ascend to the roof of his house
on the eve of the day of the entertainment, and to remain standing
there all night, holding a censer of precious incense. And as often as
he did thus, the Buddha never failed to come on the following day at
the exact time desired.”
[1] “Short [or Epitomized] History of Priests.”
This text plainly implies that incense, as a burnt-offering, symbolizes
the pious desires of the faithful. But it symbolizes other things also;
and it has furnished many remarkable similes to Buddhist literature.
Some of these, and not the least interesting, occur in prayers, of
which the following, from the book called _Hōji-san_[2] is a striking
example:—
[2] “The Praise of Pious Observances.”
—“_Let my body remain pure like a censer!—let my thought be ever as a
fire of wisdom, purely consuming the incense of sîla and of dhyâna,_[3]
_that so may I do homage to all the Buddhas in the Ten Directions of
the Past, the Present, and the Future!_”
[3] By _sîla_ is meant the observance of the rules of purity in act
and thought. _Dhyâna_ (called by Japanese Buddhists _Zenjō_) is one of
the higher forms of meditation.
Sometimes in Buddhist sermons the destruction of Karma by virtuous
effort is likened to the burning of incense by a pure flame,—sometimes,
again, the life of man is compared to the smoke of incense. In his
“Hundred Writings “(_Hyaku-tsū-kiri-kami_), the Shinshū priest Myōden
says, quoting from the Buddhist work _Kujikkajō_, or “Ninety Articles
“:—
“In the burning of incense we see that so long as any incense remains,
so long does the burning continue, and the smoke mount skyward. Now the
breath of this body of ours,—this impermanent combination of Earth,
Water, Air, and Fire,—is like that smoke. And the changing of the
incense into cold ashes when the flame expires is an emblem of the
changing of our bodies into ashes when our funeral pyres have burnt
themselves out.”
He also tells us about that Incense-Paradise of which every believer
ought to be reminded by the perfume of earthly incense:—“In the
Thirty-Second Vow for the Attainment of the Paradise of Wondrous
Incense,” he says, “it is written: ‘_That Paradise is formed of
hundreds of thousands of different kinds of incense, and of substances
incalculably precious;—the beauty of it incomparably exceeds anything
in the heavens or in the sphere of man;—the fragrance of it perfumes
all the worlds of the Ten Directions of Space; and all who perceive
that odor practise Buddha-deeds._’ In ancient times there were men of
superior wisdom and virtue who, by reason of their vow, obtained
perception of the odor; but we, who are born with inferior wisdom and
virtue in these later days, cannot obtain such perception. Nevertheless
it will be well for us, when we smell the incense kindled before the
image of Amida, to imagine that its odor is the wonderful fragrance of
Paradise, and to repeat the _Nembutsu_ in gratitude for the mercy of
the Buddha.”