The incense clock (simplified Chinese: 香钟; traditional Chinese: 香鐘; pinyin: xiāngzhōng; Wade–Giles: hsiang-chung; literally "fragrance clock") is a Chinese timekeeping device that appeared during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and spread to neighboring countries such as Japan. The clocks' bodies are effectively specialized censers that hold incense sticks or powdered incense that have been manufactured and calibrated to a known rate of combustion, used to measure minutes, hours, or days. The clock may also contain bells and gongs which act as strikers. Although the water clock and astronomical clock were known in China (example: Su Song), incense clocks were commonly used at homes and temples in dynastic times.
Famous quotes containing the words incense and/or clock:
“Flies, acolytes
of the death-in-life temple
buzz their prayers
and from the altar
of excrement arises
an incense ...”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“What brought them there so far from their home,
Cuchulain that fought night long with the foam,
What says the Clock in the Great Clock Tower?
Niamh that rode on it; lad and lass
That sat so still and played at the chess?
What but heroic wantonness?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)