Six small signs, drawn by hand on Tibetan red: snow, a mountain, fire, a hand, gold and silver, and a hammer. This is what they mean to us, and why there are six.
Above the Tibetan pieces on our home page runs a strip of six small signs. A few people have asked where they come from. They are not copied from a temple wall or an old book. We drew them ourselves, roughly, the way someone might scratch a sign into rock with whatever was at hand, because we wanted something plain enough to be honest.
When we tried to say what one of our pieces is actually made of, we kept arriving at the same six things. The first three were here long before us: snow, a mountain, fire. The last three are ours to answer for: a hand, gold meeting silver, and a hammer.
Snow: where the stories come from
Tibetans have long called their country Khawachen, the Land of Snows. Everything we make starts there, even the pieces that wander off to the Norse north or to the bronze workshops of ancient China, because that is where the work began.
Ren Chuanwei is a silversmith and a lay Buddhist of Samye Monastery in Tibet. The vajra, the stupa, the wind horse, the garuda: before any of them was a pendant, it was something people carried for reasons that had nothing to do with fashion. Our first job is to understand those reasons and write them down truthfully. That is why so much of this journal is about what a symbol has meant, and so little of it is about us.
The snow mark is six short strokes around a single point of gold, with loose flakes falling around it. It is the cold, clear start, before any metal is touched.
Mountain: the name we carry
Kangrinboqe is the Tibetan name for Mount Kailash, usually translated as "precious jewel of the snows". It is held sacred by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and followers of Bon. Pilgrims do not climb it. They walk around it, a circuit of roughly 52 kilometres, and some make the whole way by prostrating, one body length at a time.
We named the studio after the mountain for a simple reason. We did not invent these stories. We only carry them. A mountain like that does not belong to anyone who walks around it, and the symbols we carve do not belong to us either.
In the mark, the peak is capped in gold, with a sun and a thin moon above it. There is more about the mountain itself in Kang Rinpoche: The Mountain We Are Named After.
Fire: the step nobody can rush
Our gold goes on the old way, by fire.
We lay 24K gold leaf over the carved silver, then work an open flame across it, about 900°C at the tip, a small patch at a time, until the leaf settles into the silver and will not lift. Nothing holds it there but heat. There is no glue and no plating tank.
Of the six marks, this is the one we argued about least. It is the slowest part of the work and the part we are proudest of, because it cannot be hurried. The mark is a flame standing over three stones, an old way of laying a fire, with its heart picked out in gold. The full story is on our page about Traditional Fire-Gilding.
Hand: one pair of hands
Every piece of jewelry is carved by hand in S925 sterling silver and finished under a 40× microscope. Stones go in last, each seated by hand into a cut that already exists. The recesses are oxidised on purpose, so that the carving reads with depth.
Handprints are among the oldest marks people have left on stone. They say one thing: someone was here. Ours has a small gold spiral in the palm, and it means the same. Put two of our pieces of the same design side by side and you will find a line cut a little deeper on one, a facet turned at a slightly different angle on the other. Those differences are not flaws. They are the hand. If you want to learn to see them, start with Hand-Carved Silver Jewelry: Five Ways to Tell.
Gold and silver: two fish, two metals
The leaf we use is heavier than jewelry usually gets. It costs more and it takes longer, but the gold stays as long as the silver does. When the firing is done, every edge where gold meets silver goes back under a 40× microscope and is re-cut by hand, so the line between the two metals is as clean as the carving around it.
The fifth mark took the longest to find. We drew it several ways before settling on two fish, one with a head of gold and one with a head of silver, curled nose to tail into a ring. A pair of golden fish is one of the eight auspicious symbols of Tibetan Buddhism, often read as abundance, and as moving freely, the way fish move through water without fear of drowning. We chose it for a plainer reason too. Gold and silver are a pair, and on our gilded pieces neither is complete without the other.
Most of what we make is silver, with gold laid only where the carving asks for it: a flame, a crown, the rim of an eye. The mark is weighted the same way: dark bodies, bright heads. And the two fish do not close the circle tight. A piece is not finished when it leaves the bench. It is finished by whoever wears it, over years, as the hollows darken and the high points rub bright against skin and cloth.
The fire-gilded gold is thick and bonded to the silver, so you can shower, bathe and wear it in hot springs. Pieces set with stones are the exception: take those off before water, to protect the settings.
Hammer: the hours nobody sees
The last mark is a hammer with three sparks flying off it. It stands for the bench, and for the part of the work you will never see: the hours of sitting still, the gravers sharpened again and again through the day, the patience to stop when a line is right and not one stroke before.
People sometimes ask why a pendant smaller than a matchbox can take two weeks. The honest answer is that very little of that time is dramatic. It is the hammer mark: steady work, done with the same care on the parts of a piece that nobody else will ever turn over and look at.
What the six add up to
Snow, mountain, fire, hand, gold and silver, hammer. Together they are less a logo than a record of how things are made here, and we try to keep the rest of our promises just as plainly.
- We write about what a symbol has meant to the people who made and wore it. We do not claim that any piece protects you, heals you or changes what happens to you. These marks don't either.
- Every stone is called by its real name.
- Every piece is designed and handmade in China.
- Every piece of jewelry comes with free cleaning and care for as long as you own it, and almost everything can be returned within 30 days.
If you wear one of our pieces, you are carrying all six, whether you can see them or not: the snow it started from, the mountain it is named for, the fire-gilding, the hand, the two metals and the hours. We hope it wears well, for a long time.
Frequently asked questions
Are the six marks traditional Tibetan symbols?
No. The marks are our own drawings, made in the spirit of old rock carvings rather than copied from any one source. The places and ideas behind them are real: Tibet as the Land of Snows, and Kangrinboqe, the mountain our studio is named after.
Why two fish for gold and silver?
A pair of golden fish is one of the eight auspicious symbols of Tibetan Buddhism. Ours have one gold head and one silver head, curled together, because those are the two metals our jewelry is made from.
Do the marks appear on the jewelry?
Not on the pieces we sell today. They are the studio's own signs, a way of saying where our work comes from.
Tibetan Buddhist Jewelry · Traditional Fire-Gilding · About Us
More from the Journal: Kang Rinpoche · How to Tell Hand-Carved Silver · Oxidized Silver