Oud in Japan: The History of the Art of Kōdō and Listening to the Scent

In the Gulf we say: we smell the oud. In Japan they say: we listen to it. It is not a slip of translation nor a poetic embellishment; for the Japanese traditions name the act of tasting incense "listening to the scent" (mon-kō 聞香), and built around it a complete art with schools, etiquette, and generations of masters, its name the Kōdō 香道 — the way of scent. We, the people of oud, know its value as an honoring and a hospitality, and we told it in the history of oud; but what can we learn from a people in the far East who made of a single piece of oud a lesson in listening? This article is a journey through Japanese elegance with Arab eyes.

Oud's arrival in Japan: Buddhism as a bridge

The oud tree never reached Japan; its forests are in Southeast Asia, far from the Japanese archipelago and its climate. What arrived was the wood itself, carried on the bridge that carried to Japan much of its refined culture: Buddhism. For according to what the historical sources indicate, the aromatic woods entered Japan with the movement of Buddhism and its rituals from China and Korea in the early centuries CE, for incense was a pillar of the Buddhist rite: it is burned before the statues, accompanies the recitation, and purifies the temples. And with the monks, the missions, and the embassies came the precious woods, and with them came the knowledge of dealing with them.

And the material witness to this historical depth stands to this day: the National Museum in Tokyo preserves pieces of oud dating to the Asuka–Nara period in the seventh and eighth centuries CE, and the Japanese records indicate the entry of the aromatic woods into the court and their use in the Buddhist rituals, the arts, and the precious implements. That is, oud was not in Japan a passing commodity, but an acquisition among the acquisitions of the court, preserved and inherited as antiques are preserved. Indeed the old Japanese records relate a story that became among the treasures of the national memory: a large trunk of aromatic wood that the waves swept to the shore of the island of Awaji in the sixth century, and when part of it was cast into the fire a scent wafted that astonished its people, so they carried it as a gift to the court. A story told as the old reports are told, but it summarizes how the Japanese saw this wood from the beginning: a rare gift befitting the highest station.

Jinkō and Kyara: the Japanese ladder of esteem

The Japanese named oud jinkō 沈香, whose literal meaning is "the sinking scent" — the same name with the same logic we found in China, and it is one of the doors of oud's names we toured in the origin of oud's names around the world: the wood whose saturation with resin reached the point of sinking in water, the phenomenon whose physics we explained in full in the story of the sinking oud and resin density. For the Japanese, when he pronounces the name of this wood, pronounces with it the test of its quality — a language in which rarity became a part of the name.

And the Japanese esteem did not stop at the name, but built a ladder upon it. For according to the Japanese traditions the aromatic woods were classified into kinds according to the character of their scent and their origin, and their tastes were described with words borrowed from the tongue: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent — as if the scent were a flavor to be tasted. And at the summit of this ladder sat a category named Kyara: the rarest and highest of the woods in the Japanese tradition, mentioned with a reverence resembling our reverence for the aged rarities of oud, and from which minuscule amounts are cut in the sessions for its preciousness. And this obsession with sorting and arranging is not strange to the history of this material; we saw its like in the markets of the Arabs and China when we traced the history of oud grades from the forest to the market — every civilization that knew oud ended up at the same question: how do we distinguish the refined from what is below it?

And the one who contemplates this ladder notices a subtlety worth pausing at: the Japanese classified the wood by the sense of taste, not by the sense of smell alone, so he described the scents with sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness as foods are described. And that is not a confusion of the senses, but an early acknowledgment of a truth known to everyone who has sat long with oud: the great scent is not grasped by a single sense, but fills the whole palate. And perhaps the nearest thing in our tongue to this meaning is our saying of the refined oud that its scent is "rich" or "sweet" — for we too borrow for the nose the words of the mouth when the words of smell fall short of description.

What is Kōdō? "The way of scent"

The Japanese count Kōdō 香道 as one of their three refined classical arts, alongside Shadō (the way of tea) and Ikebana (the art of flower arranging). And the word is compounded of "kō," meaning scent or incense, and "dō," meaning the way — and it is the same "dō" that seals the names of the great Japanese arts, and means that the matter is not a skill to be mastered only, but a way of life to be walked: a discipline of the body, a clarity of the mind, and a refinement of taste, in which one advances for years and does not reach its end.

And the sources indicate that Kōdō crystallized as an organized art in the Japanese Middle Ages, in the bosom of the Ashikaga court where the arts of tea, theater, and calligraphy flourished with it, and the old practices of the court and the temples turned into an art with rules, tools, and schools that inherit its principles generation after generation to our day. That is, the Japanese did with incense what they did with tea: they took a simple daily act — heating a fragrant piece of wood — and surrounded it with intention and arrangement until it became a mirror of complete presence.

As for the essence of the art, it is that word we began with: listening. In Kōdō one does not say "smell the incense" but "listen to it" (mon-kō 聞香). And why listening, not smelling? Because smelling is a passing act that strikes you while you are heedless, whereas listening is a decision: a complete attentiveness, a present mind, and a respect for the rare material that perishes between your hands so it may speak to you. For the one who listens to the scent receives it as one receives speech from a sage — he does not interrupt it, does not hasten it, and repeats to himself what he heard. And what description is truer than this of what a wood deserves that waited decades in the interior of a tree so it might say its single sentence on the ember?

And this way, over the centuries, bore a complete heritage of tools and words: small polished censers befitting antiques, precise tools for leveling the ash and picking up the clippings, inlaid boxes in which the precious woods are preserved the preservation of jewels, and registers in which the impressions of the sessions are recorded. And the sources mention that its practitioners inherited a literature enumerating the virtues of incense and its benefits upon the mind and the soul: it refines the senses, drives away the loneliness of solitude, keeps company in the vigil, and a little of it suffices. Descriptions written centuries ago in the far East, and were they recited in a Gulf majlis tonight, the seated would nod to them the nod of the knowers.

How does a Kōdō session proceed?

The session revolves, according to what the Japanese traditions describe in their broad outlines, around a single strict principle: no flame and no burning. A small ember is buried in a compressed ash inside a small handheld censer called the koro, and the ash is leveled over it with a geometric care, then a thin flake of transparent mica stone is placed over it, and upon it a minuscule clipping of the aromatic wood. So the heat reaches the wood passing through the ash and the mica a gentle, filtered reaching, and the scent rises pure with no smoke worth mentioning and no smell of burning — the wood "speaks" and is not interrogated by the fire.

Then the censer is passed to those present one by one, and that has its etiquette: the seated receives the koro with both hands, raises it close to his face, bends his head over it and inhales a few calm breaths, then passes it to his neighbor with the same reverence. And in many sessions the guessing game known in the Japanese tradition by the name kumikō is played: multiple woods are heated in succession and those present must distinguish them and match between them — not for competition so much as it is a training of the nose and the memory and a test of the clarity of the presence.

And perhaps the Gulf reader smiled at "passing the censer"; for the very scene our majlis lives for centuries: the censer circles upon the guests one by one, and each reception has its etiquette and its inherited movement, as we detailed in oud as a symbol of hospitality and station in the Gulf. Two civilizations that meet neither geographically nor in language ended up at the same ritual: a rare scent circled upon the seated the circling of honor. Except that the direction differs: our censer circles to honor the guest and perfume him, and their censer circles so each seated one listens by himself to the wood — the first is giving and the second is attentiveness, and both are a celebration.

And what draws attention in the etiquette of the session is that it does not celebrate abundance: a single minuscule clipping suffices the whole majlis, the number of breaths is counted, and the silence is a part of the ritual, not an emptiness in it. Even the talk about the scent is deferred to after the listening, so that no one borrows another's impression before he forms his own. A discipline that at first glance may seem an affectation, but is in its essence a double respect: for the rare wood that perishes, and for the nose that must judge freely.

What does Kōdō teach us about tasting oud?

It is not the aim of this article that we turn into Kōdō practitioners; for each civilization has its way. The aim is that we borrow from this art lessons that suit our majlis. The first lesson: the low heat reveals what the flame conceals. For the direct coal releases oud's strong presence all at once, whereas the gentle heating opens the scent layer after layer, and shows details that are lost in the smoke. And whoever wants to try this doctrine without ash and mica, the electric burners suffice him: a controlled heat that imitates the gentleness of the Japanese way with the press of a button.

The second lesson: presence. How many a time did we perfume the majlis and the oud wafts while we are in our conversations heedless of it? Kōdō flips the equation: the scent is not a background for the session but is the session. Try just once to sit with a piece of your refined oud the sitting of the listener: calm breaths, a present mind, and a single question — what does this wood say? The details will astonish you that used to pass you every time without you reviving them with attention.

The second lesson is also a lesson in noble economy: for the Kōdō session contents itself of the rare wood with a clipping that can hardly be seen, and extracts from it with the gentle heat what others extract from multiples of it on the flame. And this is a doctrine befitting a time in which the aged woods have become rarer than at any time before: the precious piece is not honored by the abundance of what is burned of it, but by the goodness of what is listened to of it.

The third lesson: methodical appreciation. The Japanese does not content himself with "a fine scent," but describes, compares, and arranges: is it sweet or pungent? Where does it begin and where does it settle? How does it differ from yesterday's piece? Words of description, comparisons, and recording — a kit that the Gulf majlis can draw inspiration from, so the evening chat around the censer turns into a "listening session" in which woods of different origins are circled and compared. And for this very purpose the oud sample kits serve as a household tool: small samples of multiple grades and origins, which you circle upon the people of your majlis as the kumikō woods are circled, and each nose judges by what it heard.

A bridge between two civilizations

At the end of this journey the intent we began with becomes clear: the refined esteem for oud is not the monopoly of one nation. The Arabic made of oud a language of generosity: perfuming the guest is an elevation of his station, and the finest thing you have is burned for the one who sits with you. And the Japanese made of it a language of attentiveness: the wood is a teacher listened to, and the session is a lesson in presence. Two different dialects of a single language, and both say the same thing in their own way: this material is rarer and nobler than to be consumed in heedlessness.

And the most beautiful thing is that the two dialects drink from the same spring: for the wood that the court of Nara listened to is the same one that perfumed the assemblies of Baghdad and Damascus, coming out of the single forests of Southeast Asia — and the woods of Indonesia are still to this day a tributary for both assemblies together. That great story, the story of the movement of this wood from its forests to the capitals of the world, we told in full in the history of oud; as for the lesson of Japan, we summarize it in a sentence: whoever possessed a rare piece of premium oud or attained one of the collectors grade, then the least it deserves of him is that he listen to it before he smells it.

And the following table summarizes the comparison between the two dialects — not a preference between them, for every tradition is the child of its need and its environment, but so that the reader may see how much this single wood accommodates two ways of loving utterly different, utterly in agreement in depth:

Read also

This article is part of our series on the history and culture of oud. And among the coming topics we are working on: how is the scent of oud described?, the layers of oud's scent upon heating, and the difference between burning oud on the coal and heating it at a low degree. And until they are released:

• The history of oud: how did it travel from the forests of Southeast Asia to the Arabian Peninsula?
• What is the story of sinking oud? Its history and its relation to resin density
• How was oud classified in the old days? The history of oud grades from the forest to the market
• How did oud become a symbol of hospitality and station in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf?
• Why is oud called oud? The origin of oud's names around the world