Chanting without beads?

[Guest guest]

Dear Vaishnavas,pleasee accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

 

Does anyone know the technique of counting one's rounds on fingers? In case if a devotee is stranded somewhere without his beadbag?

 

Thank you in advance,

 

Your servant.

[Guruvani]

well, I can think of one way to do it.

using the thumb of your right hand you use the sections of the four fingers as counters.

Four fingers X 3 sections = 12

if you chant all four fingers 9 times that is 108 which is the number of bead on the japa mala.

you can keep track of the number of times you sequence through the fingers on you other hand, starting over at 5 fingers until you reach 9 times.

 

going in sequence up and down the four fingers from the bottom of the index finger and ending up on the bottom of the pinky finger is 12 mantras.

 

do that 9 times and that is equal to one round on beads.

 

how you keep track of the rounds is up to you.

 

you could tear off a piece of paper for each round or anyway you can think of to keep track of the rounds.

 

some devotees use mechanical clickers to keep track.

 

I imagine there are digital clickers out there as well that could be located from some electronics supply store.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Thank you, Guruvani Prabhu. I personally prefer to chant the old-fashioned way - on beads, but a couple of times I found myself in a situation when chanting on beads wasn't possible. Your advice will come in handy some time