Incense sticks are used by Chinese people to worship gods, ghosts and ancestors, and this has become a unique trait of Chinese religious behavior. Incense may be made from a variety of materials. Among them, sandal wood, agalwood, aloe wood, and many others were introduced to China from India through Central Asia by land and from South East Asia by sea around 200 A.D. Chinese people gradually developed their own favorite scents and ingredients over the centuries. In addition to special aromatics, Chinese people also have created a cultural system for the burning of incense. Incense is burned in order to communicate with supernatural beings and is offered to them as a symbolic form of food. It is also through fire that incense is imbued with magical power. Subsequent1y, incense ashes are redistributed as a kind of symbolic capital, and censers are worshipped as a representation of supernatural power.
