Can Ingredients Be Removed from a Traditional Incense Formula?

Biwendan was originally created for a very specific context.

The formula we now call Biwendan appears in the traditional collection Siheting Jifang under the name Bixie Biwen Dan. It was intended for use when “the seasons are out of order and epidemics are spreading.” It was also burned around the end of the year and in rooms that had been left unoccupied for a long time, where dampness and stale or impure air were thought to accumulate.

The idea of “the seasons being out of order” comes from traditional Chinese medicine. It refers broadly to seasonal conditions failing to follow their expected pattern: spring remaining unusually cold, summer becoming abnormally cool, autumn turning unseasonably hot, or winter becoming unexpectedly warm. In traditional thought, this kind of disruption in the seasonal order was associated with a greater likelihood of epidemic qi.

So from the beginning, Biwendan was created within a very clear traditional framework: when the surrounding environment was considered disturbed and epidemic illness was spreading, incense was burned to repel impurity and protect the space.

The formula contains eleven materials: Jiangzhenxiang, sandalwood, Guijianyu, Danshen, Cangzhu, Lianqiao, Baizhi, Xixin, Danggui, Danpi, and Peilan. In the original proportions, Jiangzhenxiang and sandalwood are each used at four liang, while the other nine materials are each used at two liang. In modern approximate weight, that is about 125 grams each for Jiangzhenxiang and sandalwood, and about 62.5 grams for each of the remaining materials.

This naturally raises a question. If someone today is not using the formula for the same situation described in the old text, is it reasonable to remove some of the materials that seem more closely related to external pathogens, cold, or epidemic illness? For example, could Danshen, Baizhi, and Lianqiao simply be left out if they no longer seem directly relevant to the intended use?

Our view is that they should not be removed in that way.

The issue is not that an old formula must remain completely unchanged. Traditional formulas can certainly be adjusted. Materials, proportions, and processing methods may all change with time, available ingredients, and actual conditions. The real issue is that a Chinese blended-incense formula cannot be understood by separating every ingredient into a list of individual functions.

Once a formula truly comes together, it is no longer simply the sum of eleven separate materials. It becomes a new whole.

A Formula Is Not Simply the Sum of Eleven Functions

In Chinese blended incense, we often speak of qi before we speak of scent.

Scent is relatively easy to understand. It is what we directly smell: woody, herbal, sweet, pungent, cooling, warm, dry, soft, and so on. These qualities can be sensed and described fairly directly.

Qi is more difficult. It is not one particular smell, and it is not simply the result of each material contributing a separate piece that is then added together.

We prefer to understand it through the traditional Chinese idea of yin and yang. Yin and yang are not two fixed blocks. They constantly transform, circulate, restrain one another, and contain something of one another. Yin contains yang, yang contains yin, and through this movement they form a whole that can sustain its own balance.

The qi of an incense formula is formed in much the same way. Every material affects the others, and at the same time is changed by the presence of the others.

This means that when we ask whether one material can be removed, it is not enough to ask, “What does this ingredient do on its own?” We also have to ask a more important question: “What does the whole formula become after this ingredient is removed?”

That is why simply listing the eleven materials and their individual uses does not yet mean that we understand the formula. We begin to understand it only when we look at how warmth and cold, yin and yang, movement and restraint, dispersal and support interact with one another.

Removing Danshen, Baizhi, and Lianqiao Would First Change the Yin-Yang Structure

If Danshen, Baizhi, and Lianqiao were all removed from Biwendan, our first concern would be the yin-yang balance of the whole formula.

The formula has its own internal relationship of warmth, cold, movement, restraint, and transformation. The ingredients are not simply performing separate tasks side by side. They are continuously influencing one another.

If these three materials are removed together, our judgment is that the formula would become noticeably too cold. The balance would shift, and the qi originally formed by the complete structure would also be altered.

It may help to imagine the formula as a closed circle. The circle works not because every point is the same, but because different forces connect with and transform one another. Some are warming, some cooling; some move outward, some draw things back; some attack, while others protect or support. It is precisely because these forces are different that they can complete the circle.

When several important parts are removed, what disappears is not merely three separate “functions.” The structure of the circle itself is changed.

The incense could still be made. It would still have a smell. But once the original circulation between yin and yang is broken, the qi would no longer be the same.

In our experience, this kind of imbalance is not only theoretical. It can also affect the overall feeling of the incense. Traditional Chinese incense repeatedly emphasizes harmony, balance, and adjustment because whether a formula feels stable or uncomfortable often depends on these relationships between materials.

A Formula Cannot Only Attack; It Also Needs Protection and Support

The second issue is that if we look only at the idea of “repelling” or “driving out” something harmful, it is easy to assume that stronger outward force must be better, and that only the ingredients responsible for attack really matter.

Traditional formulation does not work that way.

Danshen and Baizhi are not present only because they correspond to particular symptoms. They also participate in the protection, support, and circulation of the whole formula.

Baizhi is warming and pungent, and in traditional Chinese medicine it enters the Lung channel. When we consider its place in this formula, we are not only asking whether it is traditionally associated with a certain external condition. We also look at its thermal nature, the channel it enters, and the direction it contributes to the entire structure.

Danshen, meanwhile, traditionally moves the blood. In Chinese medical thought, qi and blood are not completely separate systems. If qi is to move, blood cannot remain entirely stagnant. For this reason, Danshen also cannot be reduced to a simple statement of “what condition it treats.” Its value lies partly in how it helps the whole formula continue to circulate rather than becoming a single, one-directional force.

If these supportive parts are removed, the formula begins to resemble a spear that can only thrust outward. The attacking force remains, but there is less protection, less support, and less capacity to return to balance.

Traditional formulation does not only ask whether a formula can attack something. It also asks whether the person or the system can withstand that action, and whether stability can return afterward.

Lianqiao Is Not Simply a “Cold or Flu Herb”

Lianqiao plays a somewhat different role.

As a single herb, it can certainly be described through its traditional cooling and heat-clearing qualities. But if we stop there, we still miss its place within the whole formula.

Our understanding is that once a formula enters a strong state of confrontation, whether the overall tendency is more yin or more yang, that confrontation itself can produce a kind of “fire.”

Here, “fire” belongs to the traditional framework of yin, yang, cold, and heat. It should not be directly equated with a specific modern medical condition, inflammation, or measurable physiological process. It is better understood as a state that emerges after strong movement and confrontation have already been set in motion.

Lianqiao is the part that helps bring that state back down and return the formula toward stability.

Its importance, therefore, is not simply that “Lianqiao clears heat,” and certainly not that it is sometimes used in formulas associated with colds or warm diseases. If the earlier parts of the formula continue to push outward without anything to gather, clear, and settle the resulting state, the whole structure can remain too activated.

From this perspective, the meaning of Danshen, Baizhi, and Lianqiao within Biwendan is greater than their individual indications. What matters is their position in the formula and the relationships they form with the other materials.

What Do We Look at When a Material Really Needs to Be Replaced?

Traditional formulas are not frozen.

Materials change over time. Origins change. Some ingredients become difficult to obtain. In other cases, the material available today may share the same name as an older material but differ significantly in actual quality.

Real incense making cannot simply mean copying every old name mechanically.

The more important question is: when we replace one material, what exactly are we trying to replace?

If two plants are both traditionally used for similar symptoms, that alone is not enough. We would usually look at at least three things: whether their yin-yang nature is similar, whether they enter the same channels, and whether they perform a similar role within the structure of the formula.

Take Baizhi as an example. It would not be enough to find another plant that is also used for nasal congestion or respiratory discomfort. We would also want to know whether it is similarly warming or cooling, whether it enters the same channel, whether its movement is dispersing, supporting, restraining, or something else, and whether it can actually take over the position Baizhi originally held in the whole formula.

This points to an important distinction in traditional formulation: similar uses do not necessarily mean the same position.

Two materials may look similar when considered alone, yet behave very differently once they enter a complete formula. What needs to be preserved is not the short list of isolated uses attached to a material, but its relationship with everything around it.

An Old Formula Can Change, but Its Qi and Yun Should Not Be Lost

We do not believe that an old formula must remain completely unchanged.

Materials can be adjusted. Proportions can be adjusted. Processing methods can also change depending on the condition of the materials themselves.

What truly needs to be preserved is not every ingredient name exactly as it appeared in an old text, but the qi and yun that made the formula what it was.

Qi is the overall state created through the circulation, transformation, and mutual restraint of yin and yang within the formula.

Yun is the overall character and feeling that emerges only after the materials have truly come together as one whole.

If the materials change and the proportions change, but the qi remains complete and the original yun is still present, then the adjustment can still be understood as a change made from within the logic of the original formula.

But if several materials with superficially similar uses are retained while the original yin-yang structure, the movement of qi, and the final yun are all changed, then even if the result is still a good incense, it is no longer the same formula.

An old formula can change, but its qi and yun should not be lost.