The worship is first enshrined
From ancient times to the present, Chinese incense culture has a long history. From the pre-Qin period when the heavens were invited to gather spirits and the ancestors were first offered to the saints, to the Two Song Dynasties, the temperament was nurtured, the talents were enlightened, and the incense was more endowed with spiritual sustenance and cultural heritage. The history of the development of the incense burner is recorded in the "Zhou Li": "The scissors palm remove silkworms, attack them, use reckless grass to lavender them, and do all the things of insects." This shows that the incense originated from the ancients to extinguish mosquitoes and eliminate filthy gases to achieve the effect of purifying the air. In the Warring States period, Chinese first used a general copper charcoal stove to burn incense indoors, until the Han Dynasty, due to the influence of the ideas of the immortal alchemists, there were incense utensils specially designed for incense burning, such as Boshan furnaces, golden ducks and so on.
Guihe Boshan Furnace, excavated from Shuo County, Shanxi
Boshan Mountain, that is, the Immortal Mountain referred to by the Xianjia of the Han Dynasty, is also known as the Five Mountains of Guixu in the Liezi TangWen (一曰岱舆, 二曰員峤, 三曰方壶, 四曰 瀛州, 五曰 Penglai). In fact, the land is in Luzhong, Shandong, west of Penglai, in the boshan district of Zibo City, and the whole territory of boshan district is full of mountains and has no flat land. This furnace takes the name of Boshan Mountain, that is, the appearance of the furnace cover like mountains. According to the Northern Song Dynasty archaeologist Lü Dalin's "Archaeological Map", "The incense burner is like Boshan in the sea, and the soup is stored under the plate to make the steaming incense, like the four rings of the sea." "The furnace body is similar to the deep bean shape, the furnace lid is cast in the mountains, the smoke holes are carved out due to the mountain situation, the rare animals run between the mountains, and the gold wire and gold pieces are misplaced with beautiful and soothing cloud patterns, which are exquisitely made and exquisitely crafted, representing the highest level of bronze Boshan furnaces in the Western Han Dynasty." Later, out of the need to keep clean, or to symbolize the "sea" in the "Sea Fairy Mountain", the bearing plate appeared. When incense is burned in the furnace, cigarettes waft out, swirling around the furnace body, like a fairy breath, giving people the feeling of being in a fairyland. Boshan furnace prevailed in the theory of immortals, popular during the Two Han Dynasties and the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
In the Two Song Dynasties, with the continuous development of incense culture, the incense mat was no longer a scene of wealth struggle between nobles, but a medium for literati to observe and understand life in the study room. However, the incense burner used by the literati to incense has also undergone great changes in shape, decoration, and craftsmanship. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, animal-shaped incense burners, especially poultry-shaped incense burners, reached an extremely sophisticated degree in modeling technology. For example, Su Dongpo wrote in "Cold Food Night" that "the deep musk does not burn the golden duck cold, and the light cloud cages the pear blossoms in the moon". The "golden duck" here is exactly the duck-shaped smoker that was very popular during the Tang and Song dynasties.
Han Dynasty copper goose furnace
Duck, its image is simple and cute, gentle and introverted, is one of the earliest birds to be hunted and farmed, providing people with a source of food, since ancient times is the image of harvest, harvest. In addition, because of the harmonic sound of "duck" and "A", in the era of feudal society advocating imperial examination, the duck shape was given the beautiful meaning of "middle lift" and "high school". The traditional pattern containing the duck shape, which can continue in the long river of history to this day, must have its beautiful meaning, which either expresses a good blessing, or embodies upward indoctrination, or embodies the yearning for an ideal life. Duck-shaped utensils first appeared in the bronze ware of the Shang Dynasty, and then as the importance of ducks in people's lives became prominent, more and more duck images were left in handicrafts. As early as the Han Dynasty, there were many poultry-shaped incense burners - goose stoves. After the Southern and Northern Dynasties, duck became increasingly important in life, and the fragrant duck replaced the goose stove and became an important word in the incense burner.
Fragrant duck, also known as golden duck, golden duck, etc., and goose-shaped incense burner differences have two points: one is that there are more bases under the feet, most goose stoves have no base; the other is the head shape characteristics: the head of the goose-shaped incense burner has a few more specially carved feathers. The modeling characteristics are more realistic, the proportions followed are closer to the actual objects, and there is no obvious deformation and exaggeration, so that people can recognize its image at a glance. The fragrant duck usually has two ways to open: one is to divide it in two in the middle line of the duck's abdomen, the upper half is lifted, and the lower part is placed in incense; the other is more clever, that is, at the junction between the duck wing part and the body, it is separated from the furnace body, and the wing body is used as the stove cover. When you need to put incense, remove the duck wings to open the incense burner, and when you close it, the connection part is hidden, and the connecting line is not visible, and it is integrated. As an incense burner, it must have inlet and outlet inlets before it can be used. Most of the duck-shaped incense burners in the Ming Dynasty set up an air inlet on the base, and the duck mouth was made into an open shape to produce air.
Coincidentally, in addition to purifying the indoor air, the ancients used incense to improve their own body odor and daily insect control. Women in the Han Dynasty had relatively great autonomy in marriage, and they could also participate in a series of social activities, especially aristocratic women were mostly well educated in culture, forming their own unique aesthetic sentiments, and understanding and pursuing beauty. In particular, in order to attract the attention of the emperor, the concubines enhanced their own charm, and pursued a rich and lasting aroma and spontaneous incense. Bathing in incense to obtain the natural scent of the skin became a fashion for women in the upper class. The last one uses incense to smoke the quilt. The texture of the clothing of the ancients is different from that of today's people, there are more silky, hemp, etc., and they are susceptible to insect moths, so the purpose of smoking clothes is not only to make incense fresh, but also the actual needs of insect prevention.