Page:In ghostly Japan (IA cu31924014202687).pdf/41

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Incense
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Nara in the tenth year of Meiji) which furnished supplies to the three great captains, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Iyeyasu. After this should follow an outline of the history of mixed incenses made in Japan,—with notes on the classifications devised by the luxurious Takauji, and on the nomenclature established later by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, who collected one hundred and thirty varieties of incense, and invented for the more precious of them names recognized even to this day,—such as “Blossom-Showering,” “Smoke-of-Fuji,” and “Flower-of-the-Pure-Law.” Examples ought to be given likewise of traditions attaching to historical incenses preserved in several princely families; together with specimens of those hereditary recipes for incense-making which have been transmitted from generation to generation through hundreds of years, and are still called after their august inventors,—as “the Method of Hina-Dainagon,” “the Method of Sentō-In,” etc. Recipes also should be given of those strange incenses made “to imitate the perfume of the lotos, the smell of the summer breeze, and the odor of the autumn wind.” Some legends of the great period of incense-luxury should be cited,—such as the story of