Description

Tibetan Bowl from Nepal, composed of brass made from seven different metals. 

The diameter at the top of the bowl measures approximately 12 cm (4.6″).

4″ bowl of this type is $55.  Please place preference in comment section and price will be adjusted.

This bowl was machine turned, making it one of the easiest bowls to play.

What is a Singing Bowl?

Singing bowls are a beautiful and powerful mystery. They produce the sound of AUM, the sound of energy becoming matter.

They alter space, mind and time. The sound and music of the bowls awakens cellular memory and heals the energy body.

One singing bowl is a treasure – a set of bowls that sing together is a miracle.

Singing bowls originated in the pre-Buddhist, shamanic Bonpo culture of the Himalayas. Often called “Tibetan” singing bowls, they are actually made in Bhutan, Nepal, India and Tibet. The bowl culture seems to date back to a Bronze Age in Chine some 3000 years ago and at its peak extended geographically as far as Burma and Indochina. Sources state that the bowls are made from the Seven sacred metals, corresponding to the seven known planets:

Gold Sun
Silver Moon
Mercury Mercury
Copper Venus
Iron Mars
Tin Jupiter
Lead Saturn

Legend goes on to say that the iron was from meteorites found on Himalayan mountain tops, metal from the heavens.

Unlike some of the other Tibetan sound producing devices whose use is well documented in the Tibetan Buddhist canon, there is absolutely nothing written about the singing bowls, even though they have been found in both monasteries and private homes. Tibetans when questioned about the use of the bowls, are vague, saying that the bowls are simply vessels for food (although it’s hard to imagine that a handmade object that can vibrate five individual and simultaneous tones, each at its own consistent frequency, and can sustain a vibration for literally minutes, was intended as a container for grain). Some accounts say that it is forbidden even within the monasteries to talk about the bowls, and that the highest lamas used them in secret rituals to travel to other dimensions and other worlds. The legends say that the secrets of the sound yield so much power that they must be kept hidden.

We do know that the act of listening to the sound of a singing bowl stops one’s internal dialog, making the bowls an excellent tool for meditation. They are also used by healers to tone and balance the energy body. The feeling of a large singing bowl vibrating on one’s chest is powerful and indescribable – the sound is transmitted throughout the entire body, inducing deep relaxation and an expanded state of mind.

Because of these properties, singing bowls are being incorporated into a variety of healing modalities.

No matter how a singing bowl is used, it never fails to instill a sense of the transcendent and the timeless in the listener.