All of the world’s major religions have used natural scents in their worship, in ceremonial rites, and in daily practice to aid in creating an environment that opens the mind to celebration of their deity. Scented oils and plants often play an important role in the oldest scriptures.
In the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible, for example, God directs Moses and Aaron to use myrrh, cinnamon, and calamus to make holy anointing oil, which they would use to consecrate the “ark of the testimony” in the first temple (Exodus 30:23). Jews use myrtle, citrus, palm, and willow as the Four Plants in the waving ceremony throughout the seven-day feast of Sukkot, or harvest; citron (etrog) and myrtle (hadass) provide the pleasant smells that symbolize the doing of good deeds, while willow (aravah) has no taste or smell, signifying people who do no good deeds and do not study the Torah. Palm (lulav) has an appealing taste but no smell, so it represents people who study the Torah but do not follow through with good deeds. Myrtle and citrus are now available as essential oils, though the waving of the Four Plants still requires the use of fronds or small branches from each.
Of the many Judeo-Christian scriptural references to trees, spices, and herbs that modern chemists now turn into essential oils, the best known comes from Matthew (2:11) in the New Testament, the gifts that the three wise men bestow on to the baby Jesus and his parents in Bethlehem: frankincense and myrrh, prized in biblical times for their disinfectant and anti-inflammatory properties. The gift comes full circle at the end of Jesus’s life, when Nicodemus brings more than 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes with which to bind “the body of Jesus … in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury” (John 19:39–41). Today scented incense is part of many Catholic rituals, and Christians and Jews can incorporate the essential oils extracted from the 30 plants mentioned in the Bible into their personal religious practice.
Many religions use incense in their rites of worship. Buddhist temples honor their ancestors with it and use many different kinds of resins and woods in their practice to clear the mind for meditation. Flowers and incense are part of Buddhist pŪjās, rituals done before a statue of the Buddha, to show respect and honor to the Buddha’s memory. The Buddha himself, however, emphasized virtue over scents, saying in verses 54 and 55 of the Dhammapada, the Buddha’s Path of Wisdom, “Not the sweet smell of flowers, not even the fragrance of sandal, tagara, or jasmine blows against the wind. But the fragrance of the virtuous blows against the wind. Truly the virtuous man pervades all directions with the fragrance of his virtue. Of all the fragrances—sandal, tagara, blue lotus and jasmine—the fragrance of virtue is the sweetest.” In China, Buddhists use camphor in the construction of rosaries, a powerful scent that awakens and relaxes. Juniper berries, pine, and sandalwood are also popular and traditional.
The use of incense, oils, and other scented materials has been a part of Chinese religious culture since ancient times. Gāoxiāng, the word meaning “high incense,” signifies the use of incense as a religious offering to ancestors or in worship of a deity. Some Sunni Muslims in China also use incense as a part of worship, while others denounce this as a holdover from other religions, including Buddhism.
Hindus burn incense during their worship as a symbol of their aspiration into the heavens, as well as an homage to Agni, the god of fire referenced in the Rigveda sacred text. In Vedic sacrifices—a number of different rituals performed with the goal of achieving discipline and raising consciousness to the heavens—aromatic substances were often included in the offerings to God.
A number of oils appear in Islamic texts including the Hadith. Before prayer, which they undertake five times daily, Muslims wash their hands, feet, and other body parts to remove any impurities before they handle a holy book or enter a mosque. They may add essential oils to the water before they bathe, perhaps choosing camphor, as instructed to do for burials and funerals by the messenger of Allah in Hadith 1458: “Wash her three or five times, or more than that if you think you need to, with water and lote leaves, and put camphor or a little camphor in (the water) for the last washing. When you have finished, call for me.” Hadith 4346 places worshippers who are of lower status on “sandhills of musk and camphor, and they will not feel that those who are sitting on chairs are seated better than them.”