The Strength of the Fragrance for One and a Half Thousand Years: Agarwood in the Japanese Art of Incense

This article gives a brief overview of the genesis of the development of incense culture in Japan through the determining function of aromatic wood in Buddhism, as well as the significance of Japanese classifications of agarwood (aquilaria) species which were developed in the 16th - 17th centuries. Japanese masters invented ways of coding fragrances of aromatic wood through their characteristics of tastes and place of growth, as well as using metaphorical and figurative-symbolic meaning of each name. These techniques played a key role in the history of the traditional art of koudou (‘way of fragrance’) and in the development of female education during the Edo period (1603-1867). Based on the analysis of written sources and museum collections, two classifications were studied, which are still used in Japan when assessing the quality of aromatic wood and wood products: a list of ‘61 kinds of aromatic wood’, developed using associations of odours with significant phenomena in Japanese society as its foundation - calendar holidays, religious concepts, political and literary characters, as well as the system of ‘Six Countries - Five Flavours’, which was based on geographical factors and the principle of reliance on taste and olfactory receptors.

agarwood, aquilaria, Japan, Awaji island, classification of aromatic wood, koudou incense art (“the way of fra-grance”), Buddhism

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