A STRAND OF RHINOCEROS HORN TIBETAN ROSARY BEADS QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY

consisting of 108 circular beads plus an extra bead at the end of the string tied to a malachite fitting, the strand divided into sections by two short leather strings attached, each strung with ten silver beads, one terminating with a silver vajra and the other with a bell, the beads of similar diameter and varying tones of amber colour

Collection of Franklin Chow (purchased in London, 1990).

The overall condition is very good. There may have been another bead at the very end of the rosary.
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Prayer beads or rosaries were introduced into Buddhism from Hinduism. Worn by priests and devotees alike, they were primarily used in the esoteric Buddhist rituals. They are also the attributes of certain deities such as Avalokitesvara, the Deity of Compassion, and Buddha Amitabha. Traditionally, rosaries have 108 beads that represent the 108 human passions that Avalokitesvara is believed to have assumed when telling the beads. The rosary also allows worshippers to repeat Buddha's name one-hundred times with the extra eight beads there to help if there was an omission made in the counting.

The prayer bead is made with a string that passes through a large central bead and two smaller beads before it is knotted. The three additional beads keep the rest in place and are significant to the worshipper as they signal the completion of a cycle of telling. Additionally the three beads symbolize the three jewels of Buddhism, the Buddha, the dharma that is the Buddha's teachings and the sangha which represents the monastic order. There is also a hidden string that passes through the beads. This string represents the penetrating power of all of the Buddhas. (See Meher McArthur, Reading Buddhist Art, London, 2002, pp. 152-153).

Prayer beads were made in a variety of materials, most commonly wood from the Bodhi tree; those carved in rhinoceros horn are rare. Each individual bead would have been made from the carver's stock as horn itself was expensive and none could be wasted. All the beads are different, the various colours indicating that they came from different horns and from all parts of the horn; the darkest beads from the solid tip end and the palest from the base of the horn.

See a Tibetan prayer bead made of coral, in the Potala Palace collection, included in the exhibition, Treasures from Snow Mountains. Gems of Tibetan Cultural Relics, Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2001, pl. 77; two rosaries, one of iron in the form of 108 sculls and the other fashioned in amber, published in Masterpieces of Chinese Tibetan Buddhist Altar Fittings in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1971, pls. 7-8; and one made of human-bone, from the Qing Court collection, illustrated in Cultural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism Collected  in the Qing Palace, Beijing, 1992, pl. 141.