RudrAksha-mAlA

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

This is in reply to Akshay-ji's question in

http://www.escribe.com/culture/advaitin/m25876.html

about the two mAlAs that Shankara (image on our Home page) is shown

to be wearing.

 

He is wearing two mAlAs. The black one is RudrAkSha-mAlA and the

white one is a sphaTika (quartz?, crystal?) -mAlA.

 

There is an Upanishat called Aksha-mAlikA upanishat. Aksha-mAlikA

means the garland of beads which has 51 beads, one for each letter

of the Sanskrit alphabet from `a' to `ksha'. That is why it is

called `aksha-mAlikA'. It talks about the various mAlAs that are

worn by religious purposes. mAlAs can be made of any one of Coral,

Pearl, Crystal, Conch, Silver, Gold, Sandal, or Rudràksha.

RudrAksha means the eye (akshi) of Rudra. Lord Shiva kept awake in

the cosmic night in his work of dissolution. At the end of it there

was an overflow of eyedrops from His eyes. These drops became the

seeds of the Rudraksha tree. A RudrAksha mAlA generally consists of

54 or 108 beads of Rudraksha. Rudraksha mAlA is important for the

worship of Shiva.

 

For more on this go to

http://www.geocities.com/hindu_shastras/ebooks/upanishads/aksha_malik

a_upanishad.htm

 

and

 

http://www.geocities.com/hindu_shastras/ebooks/upanishads/rudraksha_j

abala_upanishad.htm

 

PraNAms to all advaitins.

profvk