The mystery of combination of Chinese characters, like rubik's cube, split the order of the aggregates is protean. Familiar with the way of Chinese literati, often joyfully doing "qiankun removed" word game. Already, the end of the game seems to be clear: the wind immiscible liquids, such as the "story" to the "accidents", complained of city in the former, the latter is the way the world changes; Appear to be a common person, such as "Snow White" is to "Snow White", the former colour, for instance, the latter to describe things, things not the kind of harmonic in the "white"; With lips are snuggling, such as "the bright moon" to "on", whether it is a bright moon, or the moonlight shadow, always the same.
End, however, really is so simple, but a hammer? If deeper consideration, it is not difficult to find the game all foreseeable end, not understand the rules of them. End put pen to paper written at the same time, however, there are always some rules is lost in the distant letters, just buy the truth of the pen records also left this blank. Who didn't expect that the message under extremely unusual rules is again, once the time change, was clothed with a layer of mysterious veil, be confused later time.
And when the rule is unknown, so to the understanding of the outcome is uncertain. Rules as kidnapping end of negative tired, in the field of perfume, the spearhead at bison grass, citronella.
Some people say thatthatch, lemongrass, are just two things, lotus-bud in lotus, although the name is different, pure is one thing. The rearrangement of Chinese characters we see now is just a matter of taste, a harmless word game for the literati. However, some people say that the uneven combination of Chinese characters is not an unintentional joke, but sometimes a deliberate fiddling. Besides, the fragrance of Mao and the citronella are already not one word apart, but two words apart, which implies that the world can not be reversed, and the meaning is not without possibility.
All these speculations, at first glance plausible, are in fact flawed. Whether thatch and citronella are the same or different will be analyzed in detail, and I will not go into detail here. But it is certain that the distinction between thatch and citronella can not be "one size fits all". There is a much more complex relationship between them than similarities and differences.
Thatch = citronella
Its shape is like a grass and fragrant, as the root of the name "Mao Xiang", it is supposed to be established. And the term "lemongrass," referring to the fragrant grass like the grass, is no doubt. The two ends of the formula, because they share the shape of the grass and the fragrance of the fragrance, can be seen equally.
Zhou Jiawei, the master of incense learning in the Ming Dynasty, recounted several stories about a fragrant material in his great work Xiangcheng, which was almost a common practice. After the two textual studies of Mao Xiang, the story of "Xiangmao Nan Throw" is attached. The inference that thatch is citronella is obviously self-evident. A more powerful evidence is that the pharmacopoeia "Compendium of Materia Medica" does have "(Mao Xiang) out of Fuzhou, Fried soup bath is very good, this is xiangcao also" record.
But to draw an equal sign between thatch and citronella, do not be arbitrary, but to set a scene, attached to a number of conditions. In the first place, in all the occasions where it is not necessary to refer to it, but to it only in general, it has the same effect as citronella, and in this sense, both the fragrance and citronella are imaginary, not corresponding to the real thing. Second, the ancient books in the real existence of the MAO can be replaced by citronella, because in ancient times, "citronella" does not have the word as a specific plant independent meaning, citronella is only the laudable name of the fragrance, in the final analysis is just a generic name. Thirdly, the Xiangmao in ancient books, such as "taking a Xiangmao root", has the actual referential meaning, but it is difficult to distinguish, so it is ok to name it Mao Xiang.
Mao incense, citronella, if it is just a trivial word game, the potential rule is undoubtedly "citronella" in the time and space to keep the ancient, or the meaning of the void. Because in modern discourse, "citronella" no longer exists as a subsidiary of thatch, but as an independent species noun "citronella", although it still retains its old meaning.
In the field of incense, the whole significance of a thorough textual study of MAO incense and citronella is to study the ancient recipe. In the ancient incense recipe, it is obvious that the Maoxiang strip and the citronella strip can be merged into one.
The possibility of thatched fragrance
Among the thousands of spices unearthed from the Han Tomb in Mawangdui, Mao incense was the most frequently used herb only second to Chinese prickly ash. This excavation made Mao incense shine brilliantly, and also made people more fascinated by the era when the fragrance of Mao fragrance was filled with fragrance. Imagine such a scene: in the early Western Han Dynasty, in a mansion in Changsha, a maid in deep clothes lifted the smoke-shrouded furnace cover and poured a handful of ground thatch into the fuming furnace. With the sound of "Bi Bu", the room was filled with fragrance.
Time can not go back, but the scene can reproduce. The scene in the scene, the scene of all restored, people who love incense eyes will inevitably bet on that one furnace of incense. But is that really a batch of "Mao fragrance"? And how far is Hierochloe odonata, as it is known in Latin, chemically identified, from the thatch depicted in the "Caravan"?
Xiangcheng contains two textual studies of "Mao fragrance", which are also published in "Materia Medica".
It a:
Mao fragrance, flowers, seedlings, leaves can be boiled as bath soup, ward off evil spirits, make people sweet. Health Jiannan Road states, its stems and leaves black brown, white, that is not white MAO incense also. Roots such as grass, but bright and clean and long, with the same ligustilian, especially. Still into the printing incense, with incense aconite.
This piece of information conveys a lot of information, can be said to be the only way to identify the fragrance of Mao. First of all, four facial features of thatch can be clearly identified from the morphological description of thatch: dark brown stems and leaves, white flowers, long stems and stems in the shape of thatch. Each part of the plant is fragrant. Secondly, from the origin "Jiannan province" (today's Sichuan, Chongqing area), we can see thatched incense is a subtropical plant; Moreover, from the appearance of Mao incense "as bath soup" and "into the Yin incense", we can know that Mao incense is a kind of spice familiar in daily life, and can not be underestimated in the combination of incense; Finally, it can be inferred from the use of "the same ligustilium" and "combined with aconite seed" that the MAO incense has a similar medicinal value to the ligustilium, or has the wonderful effect of removing wind and cold, dehumidifying and relieving pain, and the aroma of the MAO incense is in natural harmony with the aroma of aconite seed.
Unsure what something is, people always tend to do the elimination in choices A, B, C, D. See the above paragraph of textual research, everyone's eyes are very natural focus on the sentence "not white grass incense also". Light these five words, someone out of context of the understanding of "Mao fragrance is not white Mao". Although the phenomenon of multiple names and meanings for one thing is very common in Chinese, in the world of incense, white MAO and white MAO xiang are completely two things.
Second:
There are two kinds of thatched incense: this is a kind of thatched incense; Its white grass fragrance, is not a kind of South Fan vanilla.
Unlike the previous one, which detailed the basics, this one is more vague. "There are two kinds of MAO xiang", MAO xiang here, has suddenly become a general term that includes MAO xiang and white MAO xiang, although the words point out that white MAO xiang has different qualities from thatch xiang.
Due to the claim of "fragrant medicine with the same origin", there are only three types of Maoxiang identified today: Maoxiang, commonly known as "sweet grass", white thatch root, also known as "mothgrass", and citrongrass, also known as "lemon grass".
The ancient Chinese classified plants according to their existing forms, which were divided into five parts: grass, grain, vegetable, fruit and root. Although there is a reasonable element to this identification, it is often trapped in the ambiguity of Chinese expressions that makes it difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood. In the west, plants are classified according to families and genera, and each plant has a unique title, although there are some mixed and mixed names, most of which are clearly distinct. Xi Xun Laboratory believes that the introduction of Latin scientific names for aromatic plants and the classification of families and genera can not only identify the fragrance materials, but also have special significance, which can be called the foreruner of introducing the fragrance science to the scientific ritual.
Hierochloe Odorata. Latin name: Hierochloe Odorata. Northern Eurasia and North America. This plant is hardy and can be found all over China, but it is not available in the market because it is not used in domestic medicine, so it is unknown. However, thatch rose to fame in the United States on the other side of the ocean. Its unique sweet smell was favored by the North American native people. Local residents listed it as one of the "Four Sacred Herbs" along with "cedar, sage and tobacco", indicating its status. The "Maoxiang" unearthed from the Han Dynasty tomb in Mawangdui is this kind, then the herbs used in the Han Dynasty have this blindly. I can't say unequivocally that is the fragrance by so-called bison grass, but there is no doubt that this kind of plant with ancient incense the bison grass with seven eight matches. But if this is the case, then often appeared in the fragrant prescriptions of the stars, how to abandon medicine, silent?
In addition to the white mauca, rummaging through ancient books, the trace of Mao incense left he, but the word white mauca occupied most of the country. From "Bai Hua Jian Xi, Bai Mao Shu Xi" in "The Book of Songs · Xiaoya" to "Long Wind Blow White Mao, Wildfire Blow Mulberry" in Cen Shen's pen, this simple and fragrant plant seems to have endless poetic meaning. So, what is the white grass, the real body of Mao Xiang, or Mao Xiang's close relatives, or nothing to do with Mao Xiang?
It is a white grass with white flowers and long, yellow-white roots like thatch, and it is known as Imperata transprica, which is distributed in northern China. The root of white thatch and the flower of white thatch are still used as medicinal plants. The plant is fumigated, accompanied by the fragrance of grass, and the sweet smell is spread out. Unlike sweet grass, white grass contains coumarin, but its outstanding sweet fragrance is quite similar to sweet grass. Moreover, the combination of white grass and aconite fragrance is very wonderful, then, white grass root is not without the possibility of Mao fragrance. Of course, the main purpose of white MAO root is to clear away heat and detoxify, which is somewhat wrong with the conclusion that the MAO fragrance derived from "Materia Medica" "may be able to dispel wind and disperse cold, remove dampness and relieve pain".
For the fragrance, the aroma is the first key, the rest, such as medicine, family and genus pour in the second. According to the ancient fragrance, if the flavor of mausolaria incense, in the sweet gas and grass fragrance, with sweet grass, white straw root can be. To the citronella, but with the fragrance of the most inconsistent a kind.
Chimelgrass, see leaves rarely flowers, although the stem is red root and short stem, Latin scientific name: Cymbopogon citratus., originally produced in tropical Asia, in China, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places are cultivated. Citrongrass is rich in citral, which exudes a sweet lemon fruit aroma, hence the name "lemongrass". The citronaceous's characteristic lemon fruit notes and a hint of herb notes are indeed unusual when smoked, but the overpowering aroma is far less harmonious than expected in its harmony with the sweet aconite.
To sum up, Xi Xun Lab can't decide which kind of MAO fragrance is. Sweet grass can be used, and white MAO root can be used, but it is certain that MAO fragrance is not cedargrass.
