Читать книгу Aromatherapy and the Mind - Julia Lawless - Страница 17

Aromatics have been used as offerings and as a means of communication with the divine from time immemorial. The archaeological records and remains which have survived over thousands of years inform us that all the early civilizations used incense for worship, and that the burning of aromatic plants and oils played a central role in their cultures, especially with regard to their religious customs.

The earliest recorded use of incense comes from ancient China, though few details of the actual rites have survived. It is probable that the Hindus absorbed the cult of incense from the Chinese and opened up the first trading routes to the incense lands of Arabia as well as to Egypt around 3600 BC.

The Sumerians and Babylonians burned incense as a means of purification and to please their gods, while to the Hebrews the smoke of incense veiled the presence of the deity in the holy tabernacle. The early Persians used incense in their worship, as depicted on the monuments at Persepolis, and Muslims still frequently offer incense in the shrines of their saints today. The Greeks and Romans, especially the latter, were lavish in their use of incense and frankincense is still used in the Roman Catholic Church in the West. The Native Americans used fumigation as part of their ritual practices, as did many other indigenous races, such as the Australian aborigines. Even in early America, the Mayas of Mexico burned balls of copal incense for their gods and used perfume as an integral part of their grotesque practice of human sacrifice:

Blood and incense seem fated by nature to fulfil an identical function – to establish communication with the divine.²