The Scent of Time | Moonji Publishing, Byung-Chul Han
From The Fragrant Clock
In China, incense clocks called 香印 (hyangin) were used until the 19th century. Europeans, up until the mid-20th century, ordinarily took them for incense holders. The very idea of measuring time by the smoke of burning incense — and further, that time could take the form of fragrance — was probably foreign to them. (p.94)
Incense clock tools, 香印 and 香杵 - A.TYPE
Incense clock tools, 香印 and 香杵 - B.TYPE
Embarrassingly.. put aside 20th-century Europeans — I didn't even know it existed. Only now am I googling, but I couldn't find satisfying results. Still, in the search I did learn that Korea had incense clocks too. From the Goryeo era until the end of Joseon, in the Buddhist monasteries they used 香篆 (hyangjeon). They made the shape of the incense differ by time and by use, and it was operated by an 香詞 (hyangsa) who oversaw time in a 香室 (hyangsil) that oversaw incense and time.
Looking a bit more.. it turns out there are still ways to use it in the real world. I'm not sure if it's the same method as the past, or whether you can tell the time the way they did, but I felt a kind of relief — "ah, the tradition hasn't been completely cut off." Of course, I don't really know why I felt doubly relieved.
As a means of measuring time, incense differs from water or sand in many ways. Fragrance-time doesn't flow or leak away. Nothing is emptied. On the contrary, the scent fills the space. Fragrance spatializes time, and in doing so gives time an impression of duration. (p.96)
Fragrance often serves as a memory LINKer that lets us recall our past selves, past grandmothers, our old hometown, our school days, the alleys on our way to and from school.
Smell combines and weaves temporal events into a single image, a single narrative figure. Fragrance, carrying images and stories, restores stability to a self facing the threat of dissolution, by settling it within a single identity, within a single self-portrait. Thanks to fragrance's temporal extension, the self can return to itself. (p.80)
Anyone has probably had the experience, at least once, of catching by accident the scent of a grandmother or mother from childhood in some clothing, blanket, pillow, or specific space, and — without meaning to — being overcome in that moment with happiness or nostalgia.
Whether 香印 or 香篆, that thing is seriously tempting.
