{"id":43286,"date":"2026-07-22T16:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T07:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/?p=43286"},"modified":"2026-07-24T11:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:12:56","slug":"%e5%8f%82%e5%8a%a0%e8%80%85%e3%83%ac%e3%83%9d%e3%83%bc%e3%83%88-25-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/news-en\/2026\/07\/22\/43286\/","title":{"rendered":"Incense-Making Workshop: Time Travel through Fragrances – ICC Japanese Culture Event Participant Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Zehra Sagra
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Exchange Student at Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies<\/span>
\n<\/span>From Free University of Berlin<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The sweet smell of a certain flower or perfume can sometimes trigger a long-forgotten memory of a place or a person, awakening emotions of nostalgia as one indulges into the scent. This is the power fragrances can hold.\u00a0When I think of times in Japan where\u00a0I was surrounded by scents so different than the ones at home in Germany, it\u00a0was\u00a0during my\u00a0visits to\u00a0temples. In Buddhism, these sacred places are not only a ground of worship, but a spiritual zone of calmness and purity.\u00a0The incense\u00a0becomes a fragrance of virtue and a lead for good spirits to follow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I always wondered what incense\u00a0are\u00a0made of and how different nuances can be created. This is when I saw that the ICC offered an incense-making workshop. Luckily, I was able to\u00a0participate\u00a0and saw it as my chance to broaden another field of knowledge on Japanese culture and history.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We had a special guest from\u00a0Juttoku. \u2013 a store that specializes in the craft of incenses \u2013 and learned a lot about the history of fragrances in Japan. I was surprised to find out that the first recorded mention of incense in Japan was written down in the\u00a0<\/span>Nihon Shoki<\/span><\/i>, the chronicles of Japan. It is documented that around 595 a large log of fragrant agarwood drifted ashore on Awaji Island. When they burned it as\u00a0firewood\u00a0they were amazed by its wonderful aroma and soon after presented it to\u00a0Prince Sh\u014dtoku \u2013 a devoted Buddhist who was so captivated by the fragrance, that he recognized it as a holy tool of purification<\/span>\u00a0used in Buddhist rituals<\/span>. Nevertheless, throughout Japanese history incense\u00a0have\u00a0not only been used in religious ceremonies but also in various aspects of daily life. Especially among the noble ladies in the Heian Period, blending fragrances became a way of self-expression and identity. They would \u201cbath\u201d their kimonos in the beautiful fragrances instead of directly applying\u00a0it\u00a0to the skin. Later, samurai would use the calming smell of incense for focus of mind before a battle. Finally,\u00a0in the Edo-Period the \u201cWay of Fragrance<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0(<\/span>k\u014dd\u014d<\/span><\/i>) was officially recognized as one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement,\u00a0alongside the tea ceremony and flower arranging.\u00a0It is exactly here where \u201clistening to\u00a0<\/span>Incense<\/span>\u201d to focus the mind and deepen spiritual awareness came into practice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

photo by ICC<\/p><\/div>\n

The tables we were seated at all had a box with 9 different aromatic materials. These included Sandalwood, Borneo<\/span>l<\/span>,\u00a0Clove<\/span>, Cassia, Kaempferia, Spikenard, Star Anise, Pa<\/span>t<\/span>chouli and\u00a0Japanese Cypress. They all had different nuances from a sweet, to a deeper and woodier or\u00a0kind of spicy\u00a0aroma. We were to create our own fragrance bags by mixing 40 spoons of the materials. To keep track of how many spoons we used of the materials we chose, we got\u00a0a paper\u00a0with a special writing system.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The guide recommended us to use 10 spoons of sandalwood as a base and then mix from there on. Smelling the different aromas with the people I just met was\u00a0a very fun\u00a0experience. We were chatting about various things and exchanging our aromas.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is amazing that even though we all used the same 9 ingredients, every fragrance bag had an individual smell.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

photo by ICC<\/p><\/div>\n

In the end, to breathe life into our work, we had to give our fragrance a name. While mixing my ingredients I imagined myself standing in front of\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0Yasaka\u00a0Pagoda of the\u00a0H\u014dkanji-Temple in Kyoto.\u00a0<\/span>According to tradition<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>it<\/span>\u00a0was built by Prince Sh\u014dtoku and is said to have been inspired by a dream.\u00a0Maybe it was because of the sweet temple-like aroma of my bag that created these images in my head or maybe in that moment the prince passed down his dream to me, so I named my work \u201cSh\u014dtoku Taishi\u201d.\u00a0And with that we all\u00a0participated\u00a0in a culture that has continued for over 1,500 years.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The experience was amazing and I learned so much about the way of incense thanks to the presentation. I even became friends with the people I met at this event and we had dinner afterwards. Thank you,\u00a0ICC for this opportunity!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zehra Sagra Exchange Student at Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies From Free University of Berlin\u00a0 The sw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,97],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-43286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","category-other-en","tag-event-report-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43321,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43286\/revisions\/43321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/icc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}