Blessing incense to burn for 365 days

Changzhi (CNS) -- On February 17, a delegation from Nippon Kodo and the organizing committee of a blessing cultural tourism festival started hunting for the materials to make a "blessing auspicious dragon incense."

The tourism festival, co-held by the China Public Utility Promotion Agency, the Shanxi committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, and the Shanxi Tourism Administration, is scheduled to take place in a temple in Changzhi township, north China's Shanxi Province, this coming June.

The committee began to collect designs in June 2011 for what they hope will be the world record setting incense burn. Nippon Kodo was later selected as the partner. The incense will burn for 365 days after it is set alight in the opening ceremony.

Incense was spread to Japan by the monk Jianzhen during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), and there a unique incense culture took shape. The festival can be viewed as a cultural exchange or even a cultural backflow, commented the Chinese representative of Nippon Kodo.

In earliest times, the Chinese used to eradicate disease with incense. Later, in the days of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (156 BC – 87 BC), and ever since, it has been used as an essential element in Buddhist ceremonies to pray for happiness, a practice that has been passed from generation to generation.