Forming the Knowledge of Fragrance in Song Dynasty Catalogues of Incense

Abstract

What was counted as incense in medieval China is a challenging question to answer. Despite its early importation in the first century, incense remained highly exclusive in China for a millennium. It was not until the Song dynasty that this treasured commodity became widely accessible and fully known. Tracing the knowledge formation of incense, this article argues that Song scholar-officials defined incense systematically for the first time in Chinese history with a new genre, xiangpu (catalogues of incense), and revolutionized China’s sensibility of scents. Relying primarily on the textual tradition, records of incense before the Song are a mixture of fact and fancy. The Song xiangpu texts separated facts about the commodity from fanciful stories and defined incense with botanic knowledge of the aromatics and their complex formulations. These writings and the resultant booming incense trade in the Song transformed the far south, the past destination for exile, into the source of domestic incense supply and into a tangible world of prosperity.