“Incense,” declares the _Soshi-Ryaku_,[1] “is the Messenger of Earnest Desire. When the rich Sudatta wished to invite the Buddha to a repast, he made use of incense. He was wont to ascend to the roof of his house on the eve of the day of the entertainment, and to remain standing there all night, holding a censer of precious incense. And as often as he did thus, the Buddha never failed to come on the following day at the exact time desired.” [1] “Short [or Epitomized] History of Priests.” This text plainly implies that incense, as a burnt-offering, symbolizes the pious desires of the faithful. But it symbolizes other things also; and it has furnished many remarkable similes to Buddhist literature. Some of these, and not the least interesting, occur in prayers, of which the following, from the book called _Hōji-san_[2] is a striking example:— [2] “The Praise of Pious Observances.” —“_Let my body remain pure like a censer!—let my thought be ever as a fire of wisdom, purely consuming the incense of sîla and of dhyâna,_[3] _that so may I do homage to all the Buddhas in the Ten Directions of the Past, the Present, and the Future!_” [3] By _sîla_ is meant the observance of the rules of purity in act and thought. _Dhyâna_ (called by Japanese Buddhists _Zenjō_) is one of the higher forms of meditation. Sometimes in Buddhist sermons the destruction of Karma by virtuous effort is likened to the burning of incense by a pure flame,—sometimes, again, the life of man is compared to the smoke of incense. In his “Hundred Writings “(_Hyaku-tsū-kiri-kami_), the Shinshū priest Myōden says, quoting from the Buddhist work _Kujikkajō_, or “Ninety Articles “:— “In the burning of incense we see that so long as any incense remains, so long does the burning continue, and the smoke mount skyward. Now the breath of this body of ours,—this impermanent combination of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire,—is like that smoke. And the changing of the incense into cold ashes when the flame expires is an emblem of the changing of our bodies into ashes when our funeral pyres have burnt themselves out.”