Antique Tibetan Ritual Items

for sale

In the early 1990's I met the Hungarian shaman Joska Soos, who was then living in Antwerp, Belgium. Over the years I bought Tibetan singing bowls and Tibetan rituals items from him. He told me that he had bought many ritual items from the Buddhist lamas, the red-hats of the Karmapa order, in London in the 1981. They had brought all their ritual items with them when they fled Tibet in 1959. They were short on money and they had decided to sell their personal belongings. Joska intended to start a shamanic center in Belgium, but that never realized. The items were sitting in his living room, and in his special shamanization room where he was doing his 'shamanizations' and energy work for clients. The items I bought from him were from this special room.

Now it is time for them to move on to the right person.

If you are interested, email me at solum19@outlook.com, and let me know your shipping address so I can calculate postage. Payment with check or money order. I ship only to USA addresses. No international shipping.

All the items are from pre-1959.

Tibetan Bell and Dorje

This is a pair and they are sold together.

Notice the vajra parts are eight pronged.

The bell is bronze and is 8 1/2" tall.

The dorje is bronze and is 7" long.

Price: $ 2500

Tibetan Lama Bell

The bell is the most common and indispensable musical instrument in tantric Buddhist ritual. Gods and apotheosized lamas alike hold this popular symbol, along with the thunderbolt in their hands. The bell has an elemental function and its sound, like those made by the trumpet and the drum, is regarded as auspicious; it is said to drive away evil spirits. Like the church bell, the Buddhist hand bell sends the message to evil spirits that they must stay away from the consecrated area where the ritual is being performed.

Dorje

Dorje is a Sanskrit word meaning thunderbolt and diamond. The diamond is strong and has the ability to cut any surface but it does not itself. The thunderbolt is a powerful and irresistible force of enlightenment. The Tibetan Dorje symbolizes firmness and power of spirit. It is a symbol for the nature of reality, or sunyata. It indicating endless creativity, potency, and skillful activity. The double Dorje represents that which cannot be destroyed, but which destroys all evil. Known for its double facets, the shape of the Dorje symbolizes the two forms of truth, relative and absolute. The brass center sphere is the sphere of reality.

In tantric rituals it symbolizes the male principal. It is held in the right hand for rituals.

Tibetan Phurba Ritual Tool

Rare iron (one-piece iron, no bronze parts; could be meteoritic) ritual dagger.

Probably from the 19^th century.

This is a unique object made using the lost wax method. First, the dagger was carved from wax, which was then covered in clay, which hardened, then the clay/wax was heated so that the wax melted and drained out through a small hole leaving a clay mold. Then the metal was melted and the alloy liquid poured into the mold. Once cool, the clay was removed, revealing the dagger.

The most immediately distinctive part is the three-sided triangular blade, which is said to represent the unity of the three bodies of the Buddha, brought to a single point to subjugate evil spirits or negative emotional states, as well as to avert obstacles. The three blades, and the three segments of the dagger (head, shaft, blade) represent the three spirit worlds: the sky above and beyond, the earth plane where we presently exist, and the underworld below. The power of the phurba to transform the three negative energies, known as the three poisons: attachment, ignorance, and aversion.

9" long

Price: $750

A phurba, sometimes called a magic dagger, is a tantric ritual object used to conquer evil spirits and to destroy obstacles. It is utilized in magic rituals by high level tantric practitioners. The word phurba is used primarily in Central Tibet, while the word phurbu is used more often in Kham, Amdo and Ladakh. The component phur in the word phurba is a Tibetan rendering of the Sanskrit word kila, meaning peg or nail. The phurba is an implement that nails down as well as binds. It was thus by stabbing a phurba into the earth, and thereby nailing and binding the evil spirits, that Padmasambhava, regarded as the inventor of this implement, consecrated the ground on which the Samye monastery was established in the eighth century. Whatever the original shape of the Indian kilamay have been (none has survived), it seems very likely that in Tibet the form of the phurba, with its three-sided blade, was suggested by the pegs that were driven into the earth to hold the rope stays of the tent. Due to the essentially nomadic nature of life in ancient Tibet, the tent was an important part of their routine. While traveling it was used by all, the peasants, the traders, the royalty, nobility and even the exalted monks. Indeed, the peg of the tent is the prototype of the phurba. Its triple blade is really not a dagger but a peg, precisely the kind of peg used to secure tents. The triple blade of the phurba symbolizes the overcoming or cutting through of the three root poisons of ignorance, desire, and hatred, and also represents control over the three times of past, present and future. The triangular shape represents the element of fire and symbolizes wrathful activity. The tenacious grip of the makara-head at the top of the blade represents its ferocious activity.
When using the phurba, the practitioner first meditates, then recites the sadhana of the phurba, and then invites the deity to enter the phurba. As he does so, the practitioner visualizes that he is frightening and conquering the evil spirits by placing the evil under the point of the phurba. Or sometimes the practitioner visualizes throwing the phurba in order to impale and subdue the spirits. The success will depend on the practitioner's spirituality, concentration, motivation, and his karmic connections with the deity of the phurba and the evil spirits.

This phurba might have been made from meteoritic iron.

In The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, Robert Beer writes on page 234: "Meteoric iron or "sky-iron" (Tib. gnam lcags) is the supreme substance for forging the physical representation of the vajra or other iron weapons, since it has already been tempered by the celestial gods in its passage across the heavens. The indivisibility of form and emptiness is a perfect metaphor for the image of a meteorite or "stone fallen from the sky", manifesting out of the voidness of space as a shooting star or fireball, and depositing a chunk of fused "sky iron" on the earth below. Many vajras held by deities as weapons are described as being forged from meteorite iron, and Tibet, with its high altitude, thin atmosphere and desolate landscape, received an abundance of meteorite fragments. Tibetan vajras were often cast from meteorite iron, and as an act of sympathetic magic a piece of the meteoric iron was often returned to its original site."