Incense. Incense has been and still is very generally used in many of the major religions of the world. It is mentioned frequently in the Bible (e.g., Exodus 30.8; Leviticus 16.13) and was used in Jewish worship in the great Temple in Jerusalem before the time of Christ. The smoke was accounted a symbol of prayer. A passage ( Revelation 8.3-5) suggests, although it does not establish, that it was used in Christian worship in the 1st century. By about the year 500, however, we have clear evidence of its use in Christian worship and by the 9th c. the censing of the altar and the people is recorded. Traditionally the use of incense is more extensive in the East than in the West, although since 1969 the Roman Catholic Church, which had restricted its use to the more solemn ceremonial occasions, now permits it at any Mass. In Protestantism its use was from the first very generally abandoned. In the Church of England, its use occurred between the 16th and the 19th c. but was uncommon. Through the influence of the Tractarian movement and the revival of the use of ritual that attended it, incense came to be widely used in many churches in the Anglican Communion.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989

bdug spos

[translation-eng] {Hopkins} [burn-incense]; burning incense; incense

Jeffrey Hopkins' Tibetan-Sanskrit-English Dictionary