amber mala

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Posted by Linda Pastorino on July 21, 2011 at 8:27am

Mala, original stringing, huge early amber beads with silver caps and inlaid stones. 19th c beads may be earlier. Tibet.

Eva Baby July 22, 2011 at 11:20am

Fantastic!!!
Linda Pastorino July 22, 2011 at 2:31pm

this was in my mind the best amber I have handled. the size of the large pieces were like apples and it had a beautiful patina.
Stefany Tomalin July 22, 2011 at 4:05pm

You call this necklace a "Mala" but -the name refers to prayer beads, which arent knotted so they can be slid along the string while prayers are recited, especially Hindu strands, and derived from that are Buddhist prayer beads also with a specific number of beads.
Linda Pastorino July 22, 2011 at 4:31pm

That is correct but in some Tibetan families they call this style of necklace a mala don't know why since their prayer beads have 108 beads on them with counters and weights. When i see this in my lists of necklaces I know which one it is so it is more referring to the way i catalogued it than what it actually is. I think also these beads originally would have been on a mala strand as per old photos of monks wearing them in the Potala. These are the same kind of amber as seen on those which were mala's.
Stefany Tomalin July 22, 2011 at 7:24pm

that's interesting- but confusing for us!
Linda Pastorino July 22, 2011 at 10:35pm

HI, I don't have time to recaption all of them so for my purposes it works, sorry if it's confusing...

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