The Study Of Aromatic Plant On Production, Utilization And Trade In Ancient China

The spice has aromatic smell, and its essence has the character of spicy, hot and warm. According to the origin, the spice has two kinds, one is animal spice, and another is spiceberry. The animal spice has four kinds, that is Musk, Civet, Castoreum, and Ambergris. At present, the herbaceous spice has been discovered about five hundred kind. Of all ages, the herbaceous spice was played an important roll in people’s life, as it has aromatic smell. China ancient people attached importance to use the herbage spice. Ligumaloes, mastic, sandalwood, colophony, liquorice, pepper, bunge prickly ash, ageratum, mint, cardamom, lavender, jasmine, rose, ginger, leek, shallot, garlic and other aromatic plant deeply affected on the health protection, diet season, agriculture, economy, religion, hairdressing and perfuming the environment.The research of aromatic plant of ancient China have appeared a little at the present time. The development history of spice and essence in China, recounting the produce of spice and essence of every zone in China, especially the recordation of spice and essence industry at modern times is very detailed, but the ancient smell culture of aromatic is mentioned slightly. The carrying trade of Guangzhou in Song Dynasty, deeply discussing the problem of carrying trade of Guangzhou in Song Dynasty or before, and many content come down to the background, condition, management system, market, and the China and foreign countries relationship of spice trade in Song Dynasty, it’s an essential reference of studying the spice trade of Song Dynasty. It is very worthy to notice the perfume of love in ancient China, which uses the ancient painting and calligraphy to show the ancient people how to use the spice in hairdressing, diet and perfume. The spice and seasoning booklet, the growth of all kind of seasoning and spice plant, and a few other monographs mainly researched the usage of spice in diet and health care nowadays, or planting technology about aromatic plant in modern times. Additionally, there are some correlative researches in the periodical, for example, some kind of spice used in religion, but the amount is lack. As a whole, the research about the used and processed technology is few. From the point of view that inheriting the traditional science and technology about spice, publicizing the traditional spice culture, saving the heritage of immateriality culture, now it is necessary that there is a monograph appeared about the spice produce, utilization, and trade.Herein, according to the research status of other disquisition, this paper is composed by introduction, text, and epilogue. The introduction is formed by study gist, study trends, study aim and meaning, study content and frame, study method, the possible problem and innovation, and the study base. The research deal with a great deal of China ancient literature, use the method of philology and historiography, study the produced, utilized and traded of aromatic plant in ancient China. The epilogue summarizes the whole research, pointing out the field which could be expanded in spice research, the value of using for reference to the spice, essence and cosmetic industry in modern times, the contribution of inheriting "the nonmaterial culture heritage of fragrance" of ancient China.The whole researches have seven chapters. In chapter one, the paper expounds the breed, character, geography distributing of main aromatic plant which bring the important influence to human beings. According to the part of the aromatic plant, the spice could be classified as the kind of anime, flower and herb, fragrant wood, fruit and fragrant rootstalk. Also, the aromatic plant could be classified as the vegetable, seasoning, medicine and perfuming the environment; or, the aromatic plant could be classified as mainland and foreign spiceberry; or, according to the configuration, and processing spiceberry could be classified as fragrant original wood, thread and circle spice, sachet, balm, balsam, essence. Then, in second section of chapter one, the paper list files of type to explain the nature distributing status of spiceberry in ancient China. In chapter two, from the view of ancient agriculture technology, this paper discusses the planting method of spicy vegetable, flavoring and perfuming material, illuminating the planting history of spiceberry, pointing out the spiceberry is mainly planted in family garden by small-scale in ancient China, emphasizing the economy aim of plant spiceberry, telling us the method of processing and storing of spice. In chapter three, the paper explains the utilized history and status of aromatic cosmetic in ancient China, respectively researching the utilized and processed of rouge, face cream, kermes, sachet, aromatic hair-oil, perfumery, eyebrow-black and so on by the numbers, specially probing into the aromatic physic hairdressing of ancient China. In chapter four, the paper reviews the history origin of perfume of ancient China, explaining the perfuming method that the fire is under a piece of stone, jade, silver, tile, porcelain or other hard material, and the spice is put over the hard material, then the smell is pure, having no empyreuma. In same chapter, the paper also narrates the technology of compound and manufacture, showing the style, quality of material, utilized history of incense burner. In chapter five, the paper discussing the spice utilized in diet, medicine and religion in ancient China. In the research of aromatic bite and sup, the content includes the spice manufactured and utilized in aromatic drink, aromatic food, and alcohol; in the research of aromatic curative, the content includes the utilization history of aromatic medicine, the cognition of aromatic medicine character of the ancients; the processed and utilized in clinic of aromatic medicine, and the aromatic medicine utilized in health protection; in the research of aromatic religion, content includes the spice utilized in sacrifice, Buddhism, and Taoism. In chapter six, the paper reviews the status of spice paying tribute and trade in ancient China, and this kind of tribute involves the foreign submission and local government submission of every times. According to the influence, this chapter especially pays attention to the study of paying tribute and trade in Song Dynasty, Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, analyzing the cause of paying tribute and trade in then social background, and the influence of paying tribute and trade to ancient politics, culture, economy and social living. In chapter seven, the paper comments on some literature of spice monograph of Song and Ming Dynasty, pointing out the cause of formation, content, and the influence to subsequently relative literature. This kind of literature of Song Dynasty was composed by Tian-Xiang biography, spice booklet, spice record, and new spice booklet; and the spice book is written by Zhou Jia-Zhou of Ming Dynasty. Novel content is reflection of true living, and the spice is necessary in the living of the ancients. Thereafter, in the third and fourth section of this chapter, for the purpose of demonstration, this issue discusses the trifle which happened with spice in Jin Ping Mei and Hong Lou Meng. It hoped that this study could fill up the research blank of others, making up the deficiency of spice investigation, developing the research field of science and technology history, affording a valuable reference to the spice, perfume, essence and cosmetic industry of the present age, doing a contribution to inherit "the nonmaterial culture heritage of fragrance".