Incense in China "Xiangbang" (香棒, with "stick; club") means "incense stick; joss stick". Two "incense" synonyms specifying religious offerings to ancestors or deities are "gāoxiāng" (高香, ""high incense"") and "gōngxiāng" (供香, ""offering incense""). The Sunni Muslim Hui Gedimu and the Yihewani burned incense during worship. This was viewed as Daoist or Buddhist influence. The Hui, also known as "White-capped HuiHui", used incense during worship, while the Salar, also known as "black-capped HuiHui" considered this to be a heathen ritual and denounced it. The Chinese developed a sophisticated art form with incense burning like with tea and calligraphy called xiangdao (香道). It involves various
Japanese incense stick. Many of the current incense companies have been in existence for more than 300 years. The word incense ("kō") in Japan is written in the Chinese Kangxi radical 186 composed of nine strokes, 香, which can also be expanded up to 27 strokes 馫. A literal translation is "fragrance", though in context it is understood as "incense". The word 道 "dō" may be added, which means "way", both literally (street) and metaphorically (a stream of life experience), to give kōdō: the "way of incense", which involves using incense within a structure of codified conduct. "Nihon Shoki", a book of