The use of incense or the fumes of aromatic substances is especially widespread in the great religions of the world and has many symbolic meanings. It may signify purification, symbolize prayer (as among the Hebrews), or be an offering that rises to the celestial or sacred realm. Bronze incense burners were cast very early, as exemplified by those from the Zhou period (1046–256 bce). Their forms were often inspired by cosmological themes. In early Daoist ritual the fumes and odours of incense burners produced a mystic exaltation and contributed to well-being. Under the Tang dynasty (618–907 ce), perforated golden vessels with handles were carried in the hand to accompany a votive offering. In Japan the censer (kōdan)—a vessel with a perforated cover and carried by chains—was used in Buddhist and Shintō rituals. In pre-Hellenistic Egypt and among ancient Jews, incense was burned in golden bowls, which sometimes had handles, and in cauldrons placed on or beside the altar or outside the temple. In pre-Columbian Mexico and Peru, incense burners were made of terra-cotta and sometimes of gold. Censers of precious metal provided with chains for hanging have been used since the 4th century in Christian churches, and the rite of swinging the censer is practiced in many rituals, both Christian and others.
Expelling and other protective devices
Several of the objects already described serve as protection against evil or demonic spirits. Of such a nature are the ghanta and dril-bu, the shaman’s drum, the lamps of the Indian Diwali, and the burning of incense, which was also practiced in ancient Greece, pre-Columbian America, Morocco, and many other regions. The possession of a large number of the same form of a protective object often is believed to be effective. This is the reason for the large number of bells (ghantamala) suspended on lattices on the handrail of the balustrade (vedika) around the stupas of ancient India. Even today, small bells are hung from the roofs of Buddhist pagodas in Sino-Japanese regions. Like the small bells seen on the roofs of Romanian country dwellings until the beginning of the 20th century, those bells have a clapper provided with a feather or plaquette that enables the wind to ring them continually. Perhaps the most effective protective object, however, is the “diamond thunderbolt” (Sanskrit vajra; Tibetan rdo-rje) of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Well known in early Buddhism as an instrument held in the hand, the vajra is handled in the middle and has, at one or both ends, four curved points that meet at the tips. Of varying size, they are usually made of gilded or ungilded bronze. The Tantric vajra is also associated with the ghanta (vajra-ghanta), for which it forms a handle. A symbol of the indestructible force of religion, it is believed to be able to drive away all manifestations of evil. Although they are perishable, gunshots and firecrackers are viewed as protective and expelling devices, as in China and Cambodia (where soldiers in the early 1970s fired ammunition at a lunar eclipse to drive away the dragon they believed was devouring the moon).
Representational objects
In many religions the god or divine order is represented by objects, which may be regarded simply as the god’s material form on earth or may be totally identified with the god and endowed with divine powers. In pre-Hellenistic Egypt the god was believed to be present in any man-made representation, and elsewhere the statue frequently was believed to contain the god.
Figures
Statues of human or animal figures are the most explicit of the objects representing the divine order. In most iconic (image-using) religions the gods are generally anthropomorphic, half human, half animal (as in Egypt and India) or often entirely animal. In many cases the statues conform to an ideal physical type that is symbolic and conventional. The formulation of the ideal is governed by precise aesthetic and iconometric (ritual image proportion) rules, as well as by iconographic (image-representation) requirements, as in Egypt, Greece, and India. All such standards and requirements guarantee conformity to the divine model and, therefore, the effective presence of the god within the statue. Typical in this regard are the sculptured animals of the Hindu pantheon, such as elephants, lions, horses, bulls, and birds, which—erected at sacred places in India and other Hindu-influenced countries—serve as ever-ready sacred mounts (vahana) for the journeys of the corresponding gods.
The masks representing beneficent and maleficent sacred or holy forces in religious dances—particularly in Buddhist monasteries of Nepal, Tibet, and Japan and in many other societies—constitute another category of sacred representational objects. They are usually worshipped just as statues are worshipped.
Certain customs incorporating representational figures have been widespread since prehistoric times and appear to be more related to magic than to religion. One example of this type of practice is the incorporation of a skull in an anthropomorphic statue in order to emphasize its divine, sacred, or magical character. To some extent, a similar use appears in Christian churches in the veneration of relics.
Plants and plant representations
In all civilizations, plants and trees have been viewed as sacred. Generally, the tree is either a god’s habitat or the god itself and is worshipped. Such was the case, for example, in early Indian Buddhism. Trees may also be associated with the divine order because of some incident and subsequently venerated, as was the bodhi tree, under which the Buddha received his Enlightenment. Fences or even open-air temples, the form adopted for the early Bodh Gaya Buddhist temples, are built around such trees. Innumerable cases of sacred or divine trees and their painted or sculpted representations are found throughout written religious tradition and in the ethnological data. The branches of trees such as the palm, olive, and laurel are often associated with the gods; such branches may crown the god or be included among divine attributes. Many are used in worship, as are the branches of the bilva (wood-apple tree) among the adepts of Shiva, and the tulasi (basil), symbol of Lakshmi (Hindu goddess of prosperity and Vishnu’s wife) and sacred plant of the Vaishnavites.
As symbols of life and immortality, plants such as the vine of the Greco-Roman and the Christian world and the haoma (a trance-inducing or intoxicating plant) of pre-Islamic Iran are planted near tombs or represented on funerary stelae, tombstones, and sarcophagi. Two similar and related rites involving plants, the haoma, noted in the Avesta (ancient Zoroastrian scriptures), and the soma, noted in the Vedas (orthodox scriptures of Hinduism), pertain to the ritual production of exalted beverages presumed to confer immortality. The ritualistic objects for this ceremony included a stone-slab altar, a basin for water, a small pot and a larger one for pouring the water, a mortar and pestle for grinding the plants, a cup into which the juice drips and a filter or strainer for decanting it, and cups for consuming the beverage obtained. In many sacrifices, branches or leaves of sacred plants, such as the kusha plant (a sacred grass used as fodder) of the Vedic sacrifice and the Brahmanic puja (ritual), are used in rituals such as the Zoroastrian sprinkling (bareshnum), or great purification, rite, in which the notion of fertility and prosperity is combined with their sacred characters (see purification rite).
Other representational objects
The staves of martial banners or standards are often surmounted by the figure of a god, which is frequently in its animal form. Such effigies, used by the Indo-Iranians, the Romans, the Germanic tribes, the Celts, and other ancient peoples, were probably meant to ensure the presence of the god among the armies. From the 4th century on, Byzantine armies placed on their standards the labarum (a cross bearing the Greek letters XP, signifying Christ [Chi and rho are the first two letters of the name ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, Christos]). Shields, such as the Greek gorgonōtos (“Gorgon-headed”), were also often decorated with sacred figures, emblems, and symbolic themes, particularly in post-Gupta (4th-century-ce) India, as seen in the 6th-century findings from the frescoes of Ajanta. In the Mycenaean civilization (15th–12th centuries bce) of ancient Greece, shields were worshipped in front of the temple, and at Knossos (on Crete) votive offerings were made of clay and ivory in the form of shields. The famous ancilia (“figure of eight” shields) of Rome were kept by the Fratres Arvales (a college of priests) and used by the Salii (Leapers), or warrior-priests, for their semiannual dances (in March and October) honouring the god Mars.
Relics
Relics of saints, founders of religions, and other religious personages, which are often objects of worship or veneration, generally consist of all or part of the skeleton (such as the skull, hand, finger, foot, or tooth), a piece or lock of hair, a fingernail, or garments or fragments of clothing. Such veneration is nearly universal, as is the production of reliquaries, or shrines that contain relics. The size, form, and materials of reliquaries vary greatly and often depend on the nature of the relic being exhibited. They may be fixed but are generally portable so that they can be carried in processions or on pilgrimages. Wood, bone, ivory, quartz, glass, semiprecious stones, and metals such as gold, silver, bronze, and copper are frequently used materials, and chasing (embossing), enamelwork, and precious stones often ornament reliquaries. They vary considerably in form; like the Tibetan reliquaries, or ga’u, they may be constructed on a small scale to look like churches, chapels, towers, stupas, or sarcophagi, but sometimes they assume the form of the relic, such as in the form of anthropomorphic statues, busts, hands, feet, and other forms. Occasionally, as in Tantrism and Tibetan Buddhism, the bones of holy persons are used to make ritual musical instruments—flutes, horns (rkang-gling), and drums (ḍamaru)—or objects such as the ritual scoop made of a skull cup (thodkhrag) and a long iron handle encrusted with silver.
In many Asian regions, however, human relics are replaced by copies of sacred texts introduced into statues of bronze, as in Yunnan and Tibet, China, or of stucco, as in Afghanistan (Hadda, an archeological site near Jalalabad excavated since 1928) about the 4th–6th century.
