Modern aromatherapy
Before we talk about incense, we need to introduce ancient pillows. People who often read ancient prose should find that pillows used by the ancients have a common feature, that is, hardness. There are many kinds of ancient pillows, including simple stone pillows, tile pillows and wooden pillows, as well as precious jade pillows, glass pillows and crystal pillows. 1986, a crystal pillow was unearthed in Famen Temple. This crystal pillow is directly carved from a whole piece of rock crystal, and there is also the most famous white porcelain baby pillow in Ding Song kiln. Although I don't know what it's like to sleep on these pillows, just looking at this crystal pillow is enough to sigh the luxury of the ancients.
Crystal pillow
In addition to the requirements for pillow materials, the ancient people's feelings about sleeping on pillows are also extremely important. What I want to talk about here is the fragrance we mentioned before. The ancients would put a pillow bag in the pillow. Because most pillows used by the ancients were hollow, the ancients would put pillow bags in the middle of pillows or use them as pillow towels. And for pillow bags, it is also very fragrant, usually fragrant flowers and plants, which can be used after drying. Lin Biao-min, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote a poem "Woody Garden" about pillow capsules. There are many kinds of aucklandia, one of which blooms in early April. This kind of flower is very practical, both ornamental and practical. When it blooms, the poet sympathizes with it and invites people to enjoy the flowers together.
And for pillow bags, it is also very fragrant, usually fragrant flowers and plants, which can be used after drying. Lin Biao-min, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote a poem "Woody Garden" about pillow capsules. There are many kinds of aucklandia, one of which blooms in early April. This kind of flower is very practical, both ornamental and practical. When it blooms, the poet sympathizes with it and invites people to enjoy the flowers together.
After enjoying the flowers, I am afraid that the spring breeze will blow the flowers to the ground overnight. The ancients would pick the flowers before they fell, collect them and dry them, and finally put them in pillow bags, so that they could still smell the fragrance when they woke up in the middle of the night. Although the ancients lived in an era with poor conditions, it did not affect their love for their own lives, paying attention to every detail of life and improving their quality of life. So some people say that the ancients knew more about life than modern people, which is understandable.
Ancient rest map
Later, because of the widespread use of pillow bags, as long as the ancients met fragrant flowers, they would wonder if this fragrant flower could be used as a pillow bag. For this matter, Huang Tingjian, a famous literary calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty, did it. At that time, Huang Tingjian went to a friend's house as a guest, so he saw a friend's house with tea. It was very good, so I began to praise this tea? To this end, I also wrote "Watching the Tea in Wang Zhupu": "The wind bites into spring wine, and the dream enters the pillow bag. "In the face of blooming tea? Flowers, Huang Tingjian did not think of the sadness that spring was about to pass, but thought of tea? The purpose of flowers, can I use tea? The idea that flowers soaked in wine can also be dried and put into pillow bags shows that Huang Tingjian is a very realistic and enthusiastic person.
Occipital capsule
When it comes to the most flowers in pillow bags, it's about chrysanthemums. The chrysanthemum used to fill pillow bags is not the big chrysanthemum we see now, but another variety of chrysanthemum island-chamomile. The flowers of chamomile are very small, about the size of our fingers. Careful people should have seen chamomile in suburban fields. Chamomile usually grows in patches on the downhill side of the forest, and you can smell the thick flowers when you walk by. The method of picking and collecting chamomile, drying it in the sun and putting it into pillow bags began in the Song Dynasty. In many poems of the Song Dynasty, we can see that the world often praises the role of chamomile in the Song Dynasty.
chrysanthemum
For Song people who love life, putting chamomile in the pillow bag is not only because of its rich fragrance, but more importantly, the chrysanthemum pillow has certain medicinal and health care functions, and chrysanthemum can be used as medicine, which lays the medicinal foundation of chrysanthemum. Su Shi, one of the "Eight Masters in Tang and Song Dynasties", praised the medicinal function of chrysanthemum in Dongpo Miscellanies. Li Shizhen, a famous doctor, also said, "Li Shizhen called it' Miao can be a vegetable, leaves can be sipped, flowers can be used as bait, roots can be used as medicine, and capsules can be used as pillows'.
When it comes to the fate of chrysanthemums, we have to mention a poet, Tao Yuanming, the author of "Picking Chrysanthemums under the East Hedge and Seeing Nanshan Leisurely". When Tao Yuanming lived in seclusion in the mountains, he picked chrysanthemums under the east fence. The chrysanthemum in the poem has surpassed the chrysanthemum itself, and countless times of writing chrysanthemum has shaped chrysanthemum into an elegant existence in literary works. Therefore, for literati, using chrysanthemum as pillow bag has a layer of meaning more than other fragrant flowers, which is also the reason why chrysanthemum pillows are widely used.
Ancient pillow
Whether it is chrysanthemum pillow or other pillow bags, the main purpose of pillow bags is to remove fragrance. The ancient people's meticulous care for pillows and pillow bags reflected their love for life. Perhaps the pace of life at that time was not as fast as it is now, which would make the ancients think about how to live a better life in their leisure time, but the conditions in ancient times were not very good compared with those in modern times. Even under such conditions, the ancients tried their best to make their lives more perfect, so this spirit of hard struggle is worth learning from our future generations.