Posted 14 years ago
kevweb
(8 items)
This is an old piece I got from my grandpa. It appear to some kind of prayer beas. My grand father said he had it since he was young in the 1930's. I know he was cheroke Indian so i;m assuming this is an Indian spiritual beas. Can somebody add to what it is?
I wonder if your grandfather had some Japanese-American friends? This looks very much to me like a set of Japanese prayer beads, which in Japanese are called nenju (onenju) or juzu (ojuzu) -- the 'o' in front is an honorific.
There are many styles of prayer beads according to Buddhist school, but this one definitely belongs to Nichiren Buddhism. It's unique in decorating its prayer beads with 5 tassels, each of which ends in a distinctive small pompom.
You can see at the bottom of this page how Nichiren Buddhists hold the beads when praying:
https://ssl.yasuda-nenju.com/eng/introduction/usage.php
And you can read about the full symbolism of the beads here:
https://nstmyosenji.org/traditions/buddhist-prayer-beads-juzu
I hope you're still on the forum and that this information helps you!