Long Strand of Large Indo-Tibetan Sulemani or Bhaisajyaguru Prayer Beads

This string of ancient Indo-Tibetan Sulemani or Bhaisajyaguru beads, from an old English collection, comprises large beads, well matched by colour and shape. The beads are all hand-cut and hand polished, and are essentially oval in shape but with an unevenness expected of ancient beads.  Some of the beads translucent and may have ‘eyes’ and one even has a ‘face’.

There are 32 evenly-sized beads and one smaller one. The beads are likely to be several thousand years old.

Most likely the beads have their origins in ancient India, such beads were traded widely, and in Tibet, came to be regarded alongside Dzi beads as having protective, talismanic properties.

The onyx, a type of banded agate, used to make these beads, was hand cut and hand polished. The rudimentary tools used to make such beads are clear in the set here which are unevenly spherical.

The holes used to thread the beads are similarly uneven, and the surfaces of the beads are covered with the fine, circular crazing seen in ancient agates.

The term Sulemani bead was an Islamic renaming of beads already in use for magic, religious, and currency purposes for thousands of years. Banded black and brown beads with white stripes were used in Buddhist rosaries and malas reaching back to at least 700 BC.

See a related strand of ancient onyx beads in the Louvre Museum collection, Paris. The strand was found around 1930 at the site of the ancient city of Susa (2000-1940BC) in present-day Iran.

The strand here is in excellent condition. The size of the beads, their large number, their patina and antiquity marks this strand out as particularly rare and largely unrivalled on the market today.