Powerful Things, These Beads
Beads become prayer beads when making and using them is part of a meditation practice. If not, they are simply jewelry. If you string beads as prayer beads, then each time you touch them you'll remember their purpose. In that moment, you will feel your feet on the floor and your grounding on the earth. If you continually bring small moments of silence into your life, you will stay in the present moment, and your opportunities to notice spiritual connections will grow.

Most experts ascribe an Oriental origin to prayer beads; but man's natural tendency to count, especially prayers, may safely be assumed to have spontaneously suggested fingers, pebbles, knotted cords, and strings of beads or berries as a means of counting, when it was desired to say a specific number of prayers.

The first beads, made more than forty thousand years ago, were grooved pebbles, bones, and teeth. From the beginning, they had talismanic and symbolic connotations. Wearing an animal bone or tooth affirmed success in the hunt. The ancient Egyptians, whose use of beads goes back to 3200 B.C.E., called them sha sha - "luck."

Beads have been instruments of prayer in Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism, and cultures as diverse as the African Masai and Native American Yaqui. The third-century Desert Mothers and Fathers carried in their pockets a specific number of pebbles, which they dropped one by one onto the ground as they said each of their prayers.

Beads strung together on chains are an obvious improvement over the well-known primitive method, for example, in the life of the Egyptian Abbot Paul (d. A. D. 341). Abbot Paul used to take three hundred pebbles into his lap as counters and to drop one as he finished each of the corresponding number of prayers it was his wont to say daily.

Traditionally, prayer beads have consisted of strings of similar-sized beads, seeds, knots, or even rose petals and beads made from crushed roses, from which we get the word "rosary." The Sanskrit term japa-mala means "muttering chaplet," which refers to prayer beads' function of recording the number of prayers muttered. Prayer beads not only help one keep one's place in structured prayers, they also symbolize commitment to the spiritual life. With their circular form, a string of beads represents the interconnectedness of all who pray. Each bead counted is an individual prayer or mantra, and the rote repetition facilitates a focus on the prayer or mantra itself.

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From the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Use of Beads at Prayers
The use of beads among pagans is of greater antiquity than their Christian use; but there is no evidence to show that the latter is derived from the former.

One sect in India used a chaplet consisting generally of one hundred and eight beads made of the wood of the sacred Tulsi shrub, to tell the names of Vishnu; and another accomplished its invocations of Siva by means of a string of thirty-two or sixty-four berries. These or other species of seeds or berries were chosen as the material for these chaplets because of some traditional association with the deities, as recorded in sacred legends.

Some of the ascetics had their beads made of the teeth of dead bodies. Among some sects, especially the votaries of Vishnu, a string of beads is placed on the neck of children when, at the age of six or seven, they are about to be initiated and to be instructed in the use of the sacred formularies. Most Hindus continue to wear the beads both for ornament and for use at prayers.

Among the Buddhists, whose religion is of Brahminic origin, various prayer-formulas are said or repeated with the aid of beads made of wood, berries, coral, amber, or precious metals and stones. A string of beads cut from the bones of some holy lama is especially valued. The number of beads is usually one hundred and eight; but strings of thirty or forty are in use among the poorer classes.

Buddhism in Burma, Tibet, China, and Japan alike employs a number of more or less complicated forms of devotion, but the frequently recurring conclusion, a form of salutation, is mostly the same, and contains the mystic word OM, supposed to have reference to the Buddhistic trinity.

It is not uncommon to find keys and trinkets attached to a Buddhist's prayer beads, and generally, each string is provided with two little cords of special counters, ten in number, in the form of beads or metal disks. At the end of one of these cords is found a miniatur thunderbolt; the other terminates in a tiny bell. With the aid of this device, the devotee can count a hundred repetitions of his beads or 108 x 10 x 10 formulas in all.

Among the Japanese, especially elaborate systems of counting exist. One apparatus is described as capable of registering 36,736 prayers or repetitions.

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Links :
The New Advent
Spirituality & Health Magazine Issue: Fall 2002 A String and a Prayer
History of Prayer Beads © IBRAG