Incense Seals and Stamps in Chinese and Korean Culture: Typology and Context

Abstract

This article analyzes artistic seals and stamps as a special tool in incense culture of China and Korea, used from the early Middle Ages to the present day. These tools of varying look and shape are analyzed in a historical and cultural context, using high quality materials and sources drawn from ethnographic sources and anthropological research of the authors. The use and evolution of such tools in China can be traced back as far as the early Esoteric Buddhist practices of the 7th – 8th centuries (and their prototypes in the form of Taoist ritual talisman-seals 符 fu or 印 yin can be dated as far back as the 4th – 5th centuries). In Korean culture however, the use of these tools can be traced back, presumably, only to the Goryeo era (918–1392), after which a long gap in terms of findings follows. The historical and typological analysis of the development of cultural traditions using these tools, in this particular case, could only be completed using predominantly current material. As a result of comparative study, this article identifies the most representative types of patterns, and determines the functions and applicability of such tools.