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Burning incense is a very important part of Bhutanese daily life and also during Buddhist rituals. Families offer incense at dawn and dusk everyday in Bhutan. To Bhutanese, incense is an essential of life like water, food, air and sunlight. Offering incense is part and parcel of being Bhutanese, from royalty to commoners.
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The incense offering pleases the gods and purges the home of malevolent spirits and negative energies. The fragrance of incense calms the mind, and invokes peacefulness and tranquillity in the perfumed space. Peace of mind is the pre-requisite of happiness. Bhutanese believe that incense opens the door to happiness.
Incense have therapeutic, medicinal and healing properties too.
During my trip to Bhutan, I visited Nado Poizokhang Incense Making Factory, the oldest and largest in the country (founded in the 1960s) - though actually, it is a small cottage type, family run workshop.
Some of the materials for making incense were stockpiled outside in the open. I couldn't resist smelling the fragrance of the wood - not sure what it was though but I guessed it was sandalwood.
My Bhutanese guide Sonam brought me around the workshop, and showed me the process of incense making.
The first step was to pulp and powderise the blend of woods, spices and flowers / herbs in the milling room. This is done by modern machinery nowadays.
Daily use incense is made with around 40 ingredients while ritual incense has 108 ingredients, an auspicious number in Buddhism. Incense is prepared according to ancient formulae prescribed by great Drukpa masters.
Typically, Bhutanese incense contains sandalwood, red sandalwood, saffron, nutmeg, aquilaria agallocha, honey, cane sugar, shorea robusta, jatamansi, cinnamon, clove, camphor, major cardamom and juniper powder (the base ingredient of all Bhutanese incense).
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Some Nado Poizokhang incense were formulated by Pema Karpo (1527 - 1592) - fourth Gyalwang Drukpa, head of the Drukpa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, founder of Mindroling Monastery, Minling Terchen. Imagine smelling the same incense fragrance from centuries ago (nearly 500 years), today.
Every wood or flower used in Nado Poizokhang incense are 100% organic, many harvested by nomadic Yak herdsmen high in the mountains of the Himalayan kingdom. It is believed that the purity of Nado Poizokhang's incense gives it power. Even the king of Bhutan requested for Nado Poizokhang incense for use in the palace.
In the old days, which doesn't seem very long ago from this colour photo, the grinding is done by a large stone mill.
Incense makers have a special place in the Buddhist world as it is believed that Lord Buddhist himself was the first incense maker.
Dugpoema, the Buddhist goddess of incense offering was Buddha's disciple who dedicated her life to incense, So, traditional incense making is seen as discipleship and a form of service, life mission.
The powderised wood is kneaded into dough which are allowed to ferment (for up to a week), somewhat like dough for making bread.
Next, the fermented dough is pressed through a device where it comes out as coils of soft incense on the other side (like fat noodles).
The soft coils of incense on a wooden tray ready for the next stage of production.
Another group of workers, roll the soft coils of incense with wooden boards, straighten them, arrange them into rows.
Like these on boards.
The rows of incense are brought to the drying room, where they air dry and stiffen.
When dried, the sticks of incense are separated.
The individual sticks are tied into small bundles.
Not so different from the way it was done in the old days.
Bundles of famous Nado Poizokhang incense ready to leave the workshop.
More Johor Kaki articles about Bhutan 👈 click
Nado Poizokhang Bhutanese Incense Stick Factory
Address: Saley Gom Road, Thimphu, Bhutan
Tel: +975 1711 1316
Hours: 9am - 7pm (Sunday off)
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