Xiāngshèng 香乘
The Incense Vehicle (Comprehensive Treatise on Incense) by 周嘉胄 (Zhōu Jiāzhòu, 撰)
About the work
The single largest and most comprehensive Chinese treatise on incense ever compiled — twenty-eight juàn by Zhōu Jiāzhòu 周嘉胄 of Yángzhōu, completed in Chóngzhēn 14 (1641) after some thirty years of work. The compilation absorbs and supersedes all prior SòngYuán incense literature (KR3i0015 Hóng Chú, KR3i0016 Chén Jìng; plus the lost Yán Bówēi 顏博文, Shěn Lì 沈立, Yè Tíngguī 葉廷珪, Huìzhāi 晦齋, Mòé xiǎolù 墨娥小錄 incense-portions, and the Míng Lièxiāng xīnpǔ 獵香新譜) and provides the most exhaustive surviving treatment of incense in Chinese.
The thirty juàn arrangement is: juàn 1–5 incense-varieties (with material-of-origin, region-of-trade, geographical-and-historical anecdotes); juàn 6 Buddhist-canon incenses; juàn 7 palace incenses; juàn 8 strange-incense anecdotes; juàn 9–10 incense-affairs by category; juàn 11–12 incense-affairs alternative records; juàn 13 incense-affairs miscellanea; juàn 14–17 the four-juan formulary of compound-incense recipes; juàn 18 floral-fragrance recipes; juàn 19 fumigation-and-perfume recipes (worn and applied); juàn 20 incense-utensils; juàn 21 seal-incense recipes; juàn 22 seal-incense illustrations; juàn 23 the Huìzhāi xiāngpǔ in full; juàn 24 the Mòé xiǎolù xiāngpǔ in full; juàn 25 the Lièxiāng xīnpǔ in full; juàn 26 incense-burners; juàn 27 incense poetry; juàn 28 incense prose.
Tiyao
We submit that the Xiāngshèng is in twenty-eight juàn by Zhōu Jiāzhòu of the Míng. Jiāzhòu, zì Jiāngzuǒ, was a man of Yángzhōu. This work was first compiled in Wànlì wùwǔ (1618) in only thirteen juàn — for which Lǐ Wéizhēn 李維楨 wrote a preface; later, self-critical of its slightness, [Zhōu] continued the compilation up to twenty-eight juàn and printed it in Chóngzhēn xīnsì (1641); Jiāzhòu himself wrote both an earlier and a later preface. The book has incense-varieties in five juàn, Buddhist-canon incenses in one juàn, palace incenses in one juàn, strange-incense in one juàn, incense-affairs by category in two juàn, incense-affairs alternative-records in two juàn, incense-affairs supplement in one juàn, the four-juàn manual of fǎhé zhòngmiào xiāng (formula-compound various-marvellous-incenses), congealed-combined floral-incense one juàn, fumigation-and-application incenses combined one juàn, incense-utensil one juàn, seal-incense formulas one juàn, seal-incense diagrams one juàn, the Huìzhāi xiāngpǔ one juàn, the Mòé xiǎolù xiāngpǔ one juàn, the Lièxiāng xīnpǔ one juàn, the incense-burner one juàn, the incense-poetry and incense-prose each one juàn. Its gathering-and-selection is exceedingly abundant. Investigating: since the Southern Sòng there have been the various authorities’ treatises of Hóng Chú, Yè Tíngguī, etc. — some now transmitted, some not, and what is transmitted is also of slight juàn-extent. So Zhōu Zǐzhī’s Tàicāng tímǐ jí states that the incense-affairs he had collected lay mostly outside Hóng’s treatise. Jiāzhòu’s compilation exhausted twenty-some years of effort; for all incense names, varieties, classical-anecdotes, and rules of compounding and connoisseurship, he everywhere cites widely and provides each with its origin-and-end. Since the appearance of xiāngpǔ-literature, only Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí records a Xiāngyán sānmèi 香嚴三昧 in ten juàn as the largest in juàn-extent; Jiāzhòu’s collection is nearly three-times that — there is no fuller-and-more-detailed source on incense-affairs. Submitted Qiánlóng 46 month 6 (1781).
Abstract
The Xiāngshèng is the canonical comprehensive treatise on Chinese incense culture. It is exceptionally valuable because it preserves three minor YuánMíng incense-treatises in full — the Huìzhāi xiāngpǔ 晦齋香譜 (otherwise lost), the Mòé xiǎolù xiāngpǔ (the incense section of the YuánMíng Mòé xiǎolù), and the Míng Lièxiāng xīnpǔ (also otherwise lost) — and so functions as a textual rescue-vessel for the YuánMíng incense literature.
The compositional history is well-documented in Zhōu’s two prefaces: the first draft of 13 juàn was completed by 1618 (Wànlì 46), with Lǐ Wéizhēn’s preface; the expanded 28-juàn recension was completed in 1641 (Chóngzhēn 14), with Zhōu’s own retrospective preface noting that Lǐ Wéizhēn had been dead twenty years (Lǐ d. 1624) and could not now read the full work. Zhōu’s preface also documents his own ambition to compile a Shuìzhǐ 睡旨 (Treatise on Sleep) as a companion volume.
The work is the principal source for the high-Wàn-lì late-Míng “incense culture” — the literati pursuit of seal-incense (yìnxiāng 印香) clocks for time-keeping, the multi-source compound incenses, and the aesthetic-spiritual cultivation of incense practice in the Yángzhōu / Sūzhōu / Hángzhōu cultural triangle. It is also the principal Chinese-language source for the late-Míng Indian Ocean incense trade — agarwood from Vietnam (Jiāozhǐ 交趾) and Cham regions, sandalwood from Tonkin and India, frankincense and myrrh from Arabia and Sūmǎlǐ, ambergris (lóngxián 龍涎) from Aceh, and the New-World incenses introduced via the Manila galleon trade (storax, copal).
Translations and research
- Bedini, Silvio. 1994. The Trail of Time: Time Measurement with Incense in East Asia. Cambridge UP.
- Wáng Mèngyīng 王夢瑩. 2013. “Xiāng-shèng yán-jiū” 香乘研究. Sū-zhōu dà-xué master’s thesis.
- Yáng Zhīshuǐ 揚之水. 2017. Liǎng-Sòng xiāng-pǔ jí xiāng-shì-shī kǎo 兩宋香譜及香事詩考. (Treats Xiāng-shèng as the principal source for lost Sòng material.)
- Lín Tiān-rén 林天人 (ed.). 2018. Xiāng-shèng jiào-zhù 香乘校注. 4 vols. Běijīng: Wén-wù chū-bǎn-shè (standard modern critical edition).
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal documents of the Wàn-lì-period Chinese vogue for yìnxiāng 印香 (seal-incense) clocks — incense laid out in specific patterns on an ashes-bed, which burned at a controlled rate for time-keeping (typically a full 24-hour day per filling). The juàn 22 illustrations of seal-incense patterns are the principal surviving graphic-record of this technology.