An amulet is one of the oldest kinds of jewellery there is. What the word means, how it differs from a talisman or a charm, and why people still wear one close to the body.
Ask an archaeologist what the oldest jewellery looks like and the answer is rarely gold. It is a small shell with a hole bored through it. An animal tooth. A carved stone on a cord. Long before people wore things to be admired, they wore things to keep close.
That is still the simplest way to describe an amulet necklace. It is a pendant you wear for what it stands for, not only for how it looks.
In short: an amulet is worn to keep something close and stays with you; a talisman was made to draw something in; a charm was first a spoken formula, and only later a trinket.
Where the word comes from
"Amulet" reaches English through Latin amuletum. Pliny the Elder used the word in the first century for objects people wore or hung up against harm. Where the Latin word itself came from, nobody is quite sure, which seems right for something this old.
Today an amulet necklace can mean many things: a sacred symbol, a carved figure from a tradition you belong to or admire, or a small container with something precious sealed inside.
Amulet, talisman, charm: what is the difference?
- Amulet. In the old sense, something that guards. It is worn to keep something away, and it stays with you.
- Talisman. In the old sense, something that draws in. It was usually made deliberately, often at a chosen moment, to attract a quality or an outcome. The word came into European languages from Arabic tilsam, which came from Greek.
- Charm. Originally not an object at all, but words. It comes from Latin carmen, a song or a spoken formula. Only much later did it come to mean the little trinket on a bracelet.
Most people now use the three words for the same thing, and that is fine. But the old distinction still says something. A talisman was meant to make something happen. An amulet was mostly meant to be there.
Amulets around the world
In ancient Egypt amulets were everywhere: the scarab, the ankh, the eye of Horus. The living wore them, and dozens were tucked between the linen wrappings of the dead for the journey after.
Roman boys wore a bulla, a small round locket hung at the throat, from soon after birth until the day they came of age. On that day it was taken off and offered to the household gods. A whole childhood, worn on a string and then set down.
Around the Mediterranean and the Middle East you still see the blue eye bead and the open hand of the hamsa, over doors and on wrists.
In Tibet and across the Himalaya, people carried the gau: a small metal shrine worn against the chest, often with something blessed sealed inside, a folded prayer, a few grains of rice, a scrap of cloth from a teacher's robe. Herders and traders wore them over the high passes for months at a time. There is more about them in The Gau: Tibet's Portable Shrine.
What people actually carry
It is easy to file amulets under superstition and move on. But look at what people have chosen to put inside them, and a different picture comes through. A note in a parent's handwriting. A pinch of earth from a village they will not see again. A lock of a child's hair. Ashes.
Whatever an amulet was meant to do, what it has mostly done is this. It let someone carry a person, a place or a promise on their body, somewhere they could put a hand to it without anyone noticing. On a hard day, in a strange city, at a hospital bedside. That is not superstition. That is how people have always held on.
If you are choosing one
We make amulets in the Tibetan tradition, and we are careful about how we talk about them. We will tell you what a form has meant to the people who made and wore it. We will not tell you it will protect you, heal you or change what happens to you, and we would be wary of anyone who did.
- Choose a symbol you understand. The Garuda Pendant carries the great bird of the Himalaya, the one who swallows serpents. Read what a form has meant before you wear it every day. It will mean more to you.
- Choose a chamber if you want to carry something. The Wind Horse Locket and the Tibetan Stupa Locket both open. You can fill them yourself, or ask us to have them filled and sealed at the monastery we work with, free of charge.
- Choose something with weight. An amulet is meant to be felt. Most of ours weigh between 20 and 67 grams and hang best mid-chest, where a hand finds them without looking.
How to wear an amulet necklace
Most amulets hang best mid-chest, on a 60 to 70 cm chain, where a hand can find them without looking. Wear it under a shirt if it is personal, over it if you want it seen. Take it off for swimming and the gym. Our necklace length guide has the measurements.
An amulet does not have to do anything. It only has to be there when you reach for it.
Tibetan Buddhist Jewelry · Wind Horse Locket Pendant · Garuda Pendant
More from the Journal: The Gau · Tibetan Buddhist Jewelry: Ten Sacred Symbols · Garuda in Tibet · Men's Necklace Length Guide · Can You Wear Buddhist Jewelry If You're Not Buddhist?