On a busy street in the Chenchung district of Taipei, a peddler selling statues of the Buddha Sakyamuni and other Bodhisattvas has laid out his wares. Incense smoke swirls as Buddhist chants drone from a cassette player. Aside from the various crystal balls and bracelets, the items most attracting people's attention are the oblong Tibetan dZi beads with their white-lined designs set against black backgrounds.
Which are authentic?
"This string of small tiger-striped dZi beads can ward off misfortune and ensure a life of peace. Each bead is NT$500 and you can have ten for NT$4500," explains the peddler to passers-by. "This nine-eyed bead is a 100% authentic old dZi bead! It's priced at only NT$20,000!" Gesturing to the Bodhisattvas, as if to attest to his veracity, he continues, "I am a Buddhist devotee and sell dZi beads to do good, not to make profits. I have a friend who would price a similar one at NT$1.8 million and cut a deal at NT$900,000!"
To demonstrate their marvel, he picks up two of them about the size of his thumb. He holds them together and then moves them apart. The tips of one's fingers seem almost to feel their magnetic forces, attracting and repelling. Once he has got a potential customer in his thrall, he stresses that dZi beads are natural precious stones in tune with the magnetic forces of the universe and many thousands-or even tens of thousands-of years old.
"If you put one on now, you'll start to feel thirsty after a while, which means that your metabolism and blood circulation are speeding up. Don't worry-after three days you'll have adapted. Then the bead will keep you healthy and even help you lose weight. Do you want it? You won't find it at this price anywhere else."
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At a small suburban boutique selling "authentic Tibetan dZi beads" a sign out front announcing "Father's Day Sale, 50% Off" pricks one's interest.
"Here we only sell 'new dZi beads' that have just been mined high in the Himalayas where the Earth is closest to Heaven," says a saleswoman wearing an elegant qipao gown. "Their magnetic field is particularly strong." With smooth motions she picks up an earth-sky-door dZi bead: "This bead has a magnetic field of 50 gauss. It can strengthen your physical constitution, and it's on sale for just NT$17,000!"
Can these new beads actually be considered real dZi beads? "Of course, the new ones are better than the old ones! After several thousand years of being worn by so many people, the old beads' magnetic fields are greatly diminished, and they're 'unclean.' You're best not to wear them," warns the salesclerk, with an appropriately alarmed expression.
* * *
On most days you can find D. Namgyal, known as "Taiwan's wealthiest Tibetan," at a Tibetan Buddhist cultural artifact center on the second floor of an East Taipei apartment building. His small office, which provides just enough space to turn around in, is packed with dZi beads of numerous kinds, both old and new. With these he tests his visitors' powers of discernment.
An ugly plastic bag contains more than a hundred new dZi beads of various types: earth-sky door, tiger stripes, double eyes, triple eyes. . . . The authentic old ones go from NT$50,000-100,000, whereas the new ones he sells wholesale for as little as NT$300 apiece. Even for a top-of-the-line, exquisitely antiqued nine-eyed dZi bead, with the erosion (usually the distinguishing feature of an old bead) marvelously reproduced by hand, the price is only NT$5000.
But these couldn't fool someone who really knows his stuff. "No matter how modern technology develops, there's no way to make a new one look like an old one." A statement like this, which even an avid collector wouldn't utter lightly, is simply a statement of fact for Namgyal, who started going to the Himalayas to collect dZi beads with his father as just a young boy. Namgyal makes his living in the wholesale trade of new dZi beads, for which orders are made in units of 10,000. The smooth and transparent double earth-sky-door dZi that hangs over his breast, on the other hand, is a family heirloom with which he wouldn't part no matter the price (someone once offered him NT$1.8 million for it, in vain).
As little as NT$300? As much as NT$1 million? Old beads that dispel evil? New beads that cure illness? In Taiwan's religious artifacts market, dZi beads are the subject of the most legends and also the most debate. They became hot sellers seven or eight years ago and have yet to cool down. After the Nagoya crash, frequent-flying businessmen competed with each other to buy dZi beads, among which nine-eyed dZi beads are particularly valued as "guardians against evil of all stripes." A single one of these beads can now cost upwards of NT$1 million. When the Dalai Lama came to Taiwan last year on a spiritual visit, Tibetan Buddhism received many converts. His trip also renewed the rage for dZi beads.
The controversy surrounding dZi beads stems from their mysterious origins more than a millenium ago and also from the beautiful legends that have been passed down about them over the centuries in Tibet, that ancient kingdom in the snow.
"A pure dZi bead is not a thing of the human world," asserts Namgyal. "We Tibetans believe that dZi beads were originally a kind of insect. They were living things. From time to time, they would appear lying next to each another in the grass. If you tried to grab them with your hands, they would escape by boring down into the earth. Hence you would have to use something unclean, say a woman's dress [in the typical recounting of this legend they use sand] and cover them. Then they wouldn't move and you could grab them."
Namgyal still remembers his father saying that the family's yak had once given birth to a nine-eyed dZi, and that "when it gave birth, it mooed at the top of its lungs like it was giving birth to a calf." Many Tibetans believe that yaks and sheep often eat dead dZi-bead bugs when they graze, and herders thus hope to obtain dZi beads.
What's more, because authentic dZi beads are so hard to come by, Tibetans sincerely believe that they are "jewelry dropped from Heaven by the gods." Namgyal firmly believes in these legends of stones dropping from Heaven. "New dZi beads are worked from 100 percent agate, but old dZi beads are different. Their composition is only 80% agate, 15% other minerals and 5% substances "that are not of this world."
Stories of stones dropping from Heaven can be traced back to a Buddhist sutra that records a Himalayan legend about an evil spirit who would from time to time descend to the world of men to cause plagues and disasters. Fortunately, a benevolent god took pity on the humans and cultivated its powers in Heaven, causing the beads to fall from Heaven. Those whose good fate it was to obtain one would thus be protected from misfortunes and all kinds of evil. Different variations on this same basic legend are found all over Tibet.
One legend, which places dZi beads' origins in Persia, describes how the Tibetan demigod King Gisa brought them to Tibet as the spoils of military conquest. The photo shows a thangka devoted to King Gisa. (rephotographed from Classic DZi Beads.)