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Natural Parijata Incense Sticks
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One of India's cherished symbolic flowers, the starry blossoms of the parijata tree are well renowned and feature in some of the countries most beloved stories and poems. Also known as night flowering jasmine, these flowers are a favourite in Hindu temple worship all over Asia, with the incense commonly burned to promote calm and help create a spiritual atmosphere.
Parijata exudes a sweet honey-like tropical bouquet, rich with floral top notes and heady hints of vanilla. A lot more subdued than a typical jasmine, this incense is extremely gentle and easy on the senses. A perfect floral scent for someone who's new to incense or a little sensitive - unobtrusive, light and airy.
A relatively little-known variety of incense in the west, parijata is massively popular in its homeland. Just about as soothing as incense gets, the ancient Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka would often drink a tea of infused parijata blossoms while they burned the incense to induce a tranquil state for meditation.
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The Story of the Parijata Flower |
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There was once a princess called Parijataka who fell in love with the sun demigod, Surya. She would watch his fiery chariot travel across the sky, east to west, with the rising and setting of the sun, every day. Her infatuation finally caught his attention and he favoured her. Unfortunately this did not last and, distraught and alone, the princess killed herself in a sacrificial fire. It's said that from her ashes, the first parijata tree sprouted.
People believe that the trees flowers only bloom at night so that the princess never has to gaze upon the sun, and that the flowers that fall to the ground in the early hours of the morning are her tears. From this story, the tree gained the species name Arbor-tristis which translates to the tree of sorrow. |
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Harvesting and Distillation |
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These flowers fall to the ground in the early hours of the morning after blossoming and are harvested by the local people in straw and banana leaf baskets. This is a vital source of income for many of the poorer villages, who can spend hours a day sweeping up the delicate petals in the height of the season. These harvests are taken to nearby perfumers who weigh out the precious commodity and give the families a fair wage. The flowers are immediately poured into large copper pots, holding around 40 kilograms of flowers in 80 liters of water, and steam distilled for around 10 hours. This is left to settle overnight. |
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Our All-Natural Parijata Incense |
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Our parijata incense is 100% natural and hand rolled in small batches using only the finest organic ingredients. We don't use machines, just very traditional methods and tools.
We gather our incense base ingredients, which are made up primarily of pure charcoal, sandalwood powder and vanilla, along with various resins, and we grind them all up together. When the mixture is the right consistency, we carefully pour in the pure parijata flower oil and hand knead it in. Then we take our bamboo sticks and gently roll the mixture around them. Due to the labour intensive nature of harvesting parijata flowers, coupled with the sheer quantity of blossoms needed for any worthwhile distillation, our parijata incense is only available in our absolute range. It can also be found in our absolute exotic flowers selection packet. You can also find a little parijata in our new ultimate ylang ylang incense. |
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