The figures and symbols most often carved, cast, or etched into the pendants and charms we sell (Tibetan and Chinese, weighted toward the Tibetan side of the shelf). Meanings are reported as tradition holds them (belief verbs, always, see Claims We Don't Make). This is a living document: add an entry whenever a piece arrives carrying something not yet listed.
The Buddha
The Buddha (佛, fo). Tibetan: སངས་རྒྱས (sangs rgyas)
The most common figure of all, and the most varied in depiction. The seated meditating Buddha (hands in dhyana mudra, eyes lowered) is the classic form. The standing Buddha blesses. The blue Medicine Buddha holds a bowl of healing myrobalan. And the laughing, fat, sack-carrying "Buddha" so popular in Chinese shops is actually Budai (布袋, bu dai), a 10th-century Chinese monk whose joy and generosity led tradition to fold him into Maitreya, the Buddha yet to come. Same name on the label, four different figures on the pendant. Worth knowing which one you're wearing.
Guanyin
Guanyin (观音, guan yin). Tibetan: སྤྱན་རས་གཟིགས (spyan ras gzigs, Avalokiteshvara)
The bodhisattva of compassion, and the single most common deity carved in Chinese jade: serene, crowned, often holding a willow branch and a vase of pure water. Her name means "the one who observes the sounds of the world": tradition holds that she hears every cry of suffering and responds. In Tibet the same figure appears as Avalokiteshvara, and in female form as Tara. Wearing Guanyin is a way of keeping compassion's listening close.
Ganesha
Ganesha (象头神, xiang tou shen). Sanskrit: गणेश (Gaṇeśa)
The elephant-headed deity with four arms, beloved far beyond his Hindu homeland, honored across Nepal, Tibet, and Southeast Asia, and the namesake of our shop. Ganesha is the remover of obstacles and the lord of beginnings. Tradition invokes him first at the start of any venture, exam, or journey. His four arms are read as mind, intellect, ego, and self: the whole inner life, seated.
The Eight Auspicious Symbols
The Eight Auspicious Symbols (吉祥八宝, ji xiang ba bao). Tibetan: བཀྲ་ཤིས་རྟགས་བརྒྱད (bkra shis rtags brgyad)
Tibetan Buddhism's great symbol set, appearing together on malas, gau boxes, and temple friezes: the parasol (protection), the paired golden fish (freedom and fearlessness), the treasure vase (abundance), the lotus (purity), the conch (the sound of the dharma), the endless knot (interdependence), the victory banner (the teaching's triumph over obstacles), and the dharma wheel (the Buddha's path). Individually they're charms. Together they are a summary of the whole tradition in eight small pictures.
Vajra & Bell
Vajra & Bell (金刚杵 (jin gang chu) / 金刚铃 (jin gang ling)). Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ (rdo rje, dorje) & དྲིལ་བུ (dril bu)
The vajra, the diamond-thunderbolt, indestructible as diamond, striking as lightning, is the emblem of method and compassion. The bell is the emblem of wisdom. They are always used together in Tibetan ritual because neither half of the pair completes anything alone. The crossed vajra (visvavajra) marks absolute stability, protecting from all four directions. You'll find it etched on beads, cast into fittings, and stamped on pendants.
The Prayer Wheel
The Prayer Wheel (转经筒, zhuan jing tong). Tibetan: མ་ནི་ཆོས་འཁོར (ma ni chos 'khor)
A cylinder holding rolled mantras, most often Om mani padme hum, that turns on a spindle. Tibetan tradition holds that each rotation sends the mantra outward the way speech would, so a spinning wheel is a prayer in motion. Hand wheels like the one sketched here are carried, worn as pendants, and spun one-handed while walking. Modern spinner rings and pendants are the same idea miniaturized.
Skull Imagery
Skull Imagery. Tibetan: ཐོད་པ (thod pa, kapala)
Skulls on Himalayan jewelry are not gothic decoration. They're the oldest teaching in the tradition, worn rather than spoken. The charnel-ground skeleton lords (Chitipati) dance on the lesson of impermanence. The kapala, the ritual skull cup, makes the same point with its emptiness ready to receive. Our yak bone and yak skull pieces carry this lineage: a reminder to spend the days well, close enough to touch.
The Lotus
The Lotus (莲花, lian hua). Tibetan: པདྨ (padma)
The central purity symbol of Buddhism: rooted in mud, rising through water, blooming unstained above it. The Buddha is traditionally depicted seated or standing on a lotus, and the flower appears on pendants, bead carvings, and temple art across every Buddhist culture. Tradition also reads the bloom as spiritual unfolding: petals opening one by one, the way practice actually goes.
The Buddha's Hand (Abhaya)
The Buddha's Hand (佛手, fo shou). Sanskrit: abhaya mudra, "the gesture of fearlessness"
The open palm raised or extended, fingers together: "do not be afraid." The abhaya mudra is the Buddha's gesture of protection, reassurance, and blessing. Scripture remembers him raising it to calm a rampaging elephant, and the lake that stopped to listen. Brass and bronze hand pendants in this gesture are common across the Himalayan trade. The spiral in the palm, where it appears, is the turning wheel of the teaching.
Dragon & Phoenix
Dragon & Phoenix (龙凤, long feng)
The imperial pair: the dragon commands rain, rivers, and the yang force of the world, power, vigor, good fortune. The phoenix (凤, feng) answers with grace, renewal, and the yin force, appearing in times of peace and good rule. Paired, they're the ultimate Chinese symbol of a harmonious match, dragon for the groom, phoenix for the bride, and on jewelry they carry both power and blessing at once.
The Chinese Zodiac
The Twelve Zodiac Animals (生肖, sheng xiao)
Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig: a twelve-year cycle, each year under an animal whose traits tradition says it lends to those born within it. Zodiac pendants are birthday gifts first and identity charms second: find your animal, wear your year. One custom worth knowing: in your own zodiac year (本命年, ben ming nian) tradition wears red to keep luck close.
The Nine-Tailed Fox
The Nine-Tailed Fox (九尾狐, jiu wei hu)
In the oldest Chinese mythology (the Classic of Mountains and Seas), the nine-tailed fox of Qingqiu was an auspicious beast: a sign of peace and flourishing, a witness to love and marriage, growing a new tail for every hundred years of merit. Later novels, especially the tale of Daji, recast it as the seductress, and that second life stuck. Tradition reads it today as wisdom, charm, and transformation: the buyer decides which fox they're wearing.
Zhong Kui
Zhong Kui (钟馗, zhong kui)
The demon queller: a scholar of ferocious talent and ferocious face, who, legend says, was denied his rightful rank for his ugliness and hurled himself at the palace steps in protest. Deified, he was given the job he was born for: hunting ghosts. His image, bearded, glaring, sword in hand, has hung by Chinese doors for a thousand years as a warning to anything that means harm. On a pendant, he's the friendliest bodyguard imaginable.
Pixiu
Pixiu (貔貅, pi xiu)
The winged lion of Chinese wealth lore: a dragon's head, a lion's body, wings where wings shouldn't be, and (the detail that matters) an appetite for gold it never relinquishes. Tradition says the pixiu eats treasure and has no exit for it, so wealth that enters stays. It also patrols against evil spirits, which is why it guards banks, offices, and wrists across China. Pairs are common: the pair guards, the single one collects.
Vishvavajra
Vishvavajra (十字金刚杵, shi zi jin gang chu). Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་རྒྱ་གྲམ (rdo rje rgya gram)
The crossed vajra: two vajras locked at right angles, points reaching the four directions. It stands for absolute stability and the four immeasurables: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Etched on fittings, stamped on pendants, it protects from every side at once.
The Kartika
The Kartika (金刚钺刀, jin gang yue dao). Tibetan: གྲི་གུག (gri gug)
The ritual curved knife of Himalayan iconography, its hooked blade paired with a vajra handle in wrathful deities' hands. Tradition reads the curved blade as cutting through ignorance and the ego's grip, the knife that severs what binds. The axe form (斧, fu) carries the same meaning with a straighter edge, held by protector deities like authority over obstacles themselves.
Wrathful Faces
Wrathful Faces (愤怒相, fen nu xiang). Tibetan: ཆོས་སྐྱོང (chos skyong, dharmapala)
Bared fangs, bulging eyes, crowns of flame or skulls: these are not demons but the wrathful faces of the protector deities. Their ferocity is a function, tradition holds, anger borrowed to tear through obstacles, and the skull crown is the vanity they have already conquered. Mahakala, their best-known member, guards temples, travelers, and pendants alike.
The Scorpion
The Scorpion (蝎子, xie zi). Tibetan: སྡིག་པ (sdig pa)
In Tibetan tradition the scorpion is a transformer: its sting figures the three poisons, desire, anger, and ignorance, turned by practice into wisdom. Legend remembers Guru Rinpoche subduing demons in scorpion form, and wrathful deities trampling venom underfoot. Worn as a charm, it converts what would harm you into what guards you.
Garuda
Garuda (金翅鸟, jin chi niao). Tibetan: ཁྱུང (khyung)
The great golden-winged bird of Himalayan myth, king of birds and sworn enemy of the nagas, the serpent beings of water and treasure. The khyung appears on roofs, shields, and pendants across Tibet as the force that clears obstacles and cures poison, wings spread wide. South of the Himalaya the same figure carries Vishnu as his mount.
Sun & Moon
Sun & Moon (日月, ri yue). Tibetan: ཉི་ཟླ (nyi zla)
A pair used everywhere in Himalayan art and metalwork: the sun and moon together mark the union of wisdom and method, the two wings of practice that carry a being to awakening. On finials and pendants the pair also simply reads as the whole sky, day and night in one glance.
The Dharma Wheel
The Dharma Wheel (法轮, fa lun). Tibetan: ཆོས་འཁོར (chos 'khor)
The wheel the Buddha set turning at his first sermon, and the emblem of the teaching in motion ever since. Eight spokes stand for the Noble Eightfold Path, and a turning wheel prays for the dharma to keep rolling. It is one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols and one of the oldest stamps on Buddhist metalwork.
The Syllable Om
The Syllable Om (唵, an). Sanskrit: ཨོཾ (om)
The seed syllable at the head of the mantra Om mani padme hum, and of nearly every Vedic prayer before it. Tradition holds it as the sound the universe makes, the first and last note. On a pendant it stands for the teaching itself, spoken without a mouth.
The Flaming Mani Jewel
The Flaming Mani Jewel (摩尼宝珠, mo ni bao zhu). Sanskrit: cintamani. Tibetan: ནོར་བུ (nor bu)
The wish-granting jewel of Buddhist legend, blazing with flames that keep it from ever being stolen. Tradition holds that it grants what is truly needed rather than what is merely wanted, which is a much better bargain than it sounds. Resting on a lotus, wrapped in fire, it promises abundance with a conscience.
The Treasure Vase
The Treasure Vase (宝瓶, bao ping). Tibetan: བུམ་པ (bum pa)
The vase that never empties: one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols, holding the water of life, long life, wealth, and all good things in endless supply. Temples keep vases sealed at their foundations and on their altars; pendants carry the same promise in miniature. Spilling over with jewels or topped with a wish-granting tree, it is abundance you can wear.
Melong & The Nine-Palace Mirror
Melong & The Nine-Palace Mirror (九宫八卦镜, jiu gong ba gua jing). Tibetan: མེ་ལོང (me long)
The melong, the ritual mirror of Tibetan tradition, reflects without distortion: a symbol of the mind's own clarity. The nine-palace bagua arrangement on its back maps the eight trigrams around a central palace, a Chinese cosmological compass assigning each direction a guardian, a season, and a fortune. Together they make the classic protective mirror pendant, deflecting harm by showing it itself.
The Arhat
The Arhat (罗汉, luo han). Tibetan: དགྲ་བཅོམ་པ (dgra bcom pa)
The perfected ones: monks of ferocious discipline who reached the far shore of practice and remain as exemplars. Chinese art gives them personality, where the Eighteen Luohans each guard a mood and a moment. A seated lama figure, haloed, staff in hand, carries the same lineage: a teacher on the path, meditating for your benefit.
Related: Bead Shapes · Dzi Bead General · Tibetan Color Symbolism · Amulets & Protection · Number Symbolism · Claims We Don't Make