{"product_id":"phurba-vajrakilaya-ritual-dagger-pendant","title":"Phurba Pendant – Vajrakilaya Ritual Dagger in Sterling Silver","description":"\u003ch2\u003ePhurba Pendant — Vajrakilaya Ritual Dagger in Sterling Silver\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAfter a Ming-dynasty form · crossed vajra crown · three wrathful heads · three-sided blade · pure silver or 24K fire-gilded\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e is not a knife. It has three faces and no cutting edge, and it was never meant to slice anything. It is a stake. You drive it down, and what it pins does not get up again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhat it pins is not a person. In the tradition it is whatever in you keeps coming back — the anger you thought you had finished with, the wanting that returns wearing a new coat, the not-seeing that makes both of them possible. Three faces on the blade because there are three of them, and they are taken down together or not at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eONE SIZE · TWO EDITIONS\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003e65 × 40 × 12 MM (2.6 × 1.6 × 0.5 IN) · 20 G \/ 0.7 OZ\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eS925 sterling silver, oxidised and hand-finished · 24K fire-gilding and natural garnets on the Fire-Gilded Edition\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTitanium bead chain, approximately 65 cm \/ 26 in, included · or upgrade to the silver chain with a carved garuda S-hook\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eChoose Your Edition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePure Silver Edition\u003c\/strong\u003e — S925 sterling silver, no gold and no stones. Every head, prong and serpent is the same as on the gilded piece; only the gold is absent. With nothing bright to lead the eye, what holds it up is the cutting itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e24K Fire-Gilded Edition\u003c\/strong\u003e — the same carving, with 24K gold fused into the silver by fire: across the garuda's face at the crossing, around the beaded collars, into the flames and faces down the handle, and along the serpents that twist down all three faces of the blade. Natural garnets are set by hand into the makara heads of the crossed vajra crown. Against the darkened silver the gold picks out the whole structure of the object, from crown to point.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eChoose Your Chain\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTitanium Bead Chain\u003c\/strong\u003e — included with either edition, approximately 65 cm \/ 26 in. Light, strong, and quiet against the skin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSilver Chain with Garuda S-Hook\u003c\/strong\u003e — a silver chain that closes on a carved S-hook with garuda and vajra-head ends, so the carving carries on past the pendant and into the clasp. Add $300 to either edition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eA Note On The Price\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the piece we priced wrong on purpose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCount what is on it. Three wrathful heads, each carved and finished as its own sculpture. A crossed vajra at the crown with prongs curling in from four directions. A three-sided blade with serpents worked into all three faces. Beaded bands between every section, cut grain by grain. Then look at the number on this page. The two do not line up, and we know it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe let it go at this price because of what the object is. Of everything we make, the \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e is the one we most want on people rather than behind glass — and pricing it the way the hours would justify would put it past most of the people it was made for. So this one carries less margin than anything else in the workshop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are saying that out loud, because a price this low under work this dense usually means a corner was cut somewhere. Here it means we took less.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eDesign Philosophy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1. The Ming form, not a modern one.\u003c\/strong\u003e The proportions follow a \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e type that came down from the Yongle era of the Ming — the period when the imperial workshops were producing Tibetan ritual bronzes at a level that has never really been matched since. Those pieces sit in museums now. We did not reinterpret the shape or streamline it. We took the old proportions and built to them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2. Four prongs: square earth, round heaven.\u003c\/strong\u003e The handle is built on a four-pronged structure — four, for the four directions, the squared earth underfoot. The arc the prongs describe as they curve back in is the circle of heaven closing over it. The oldest cosmology in this part of the world, carried in the grip rather than written anywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e3. Three heads, stacked down the handle.\u003c\/strong\u003e Where most hands would put a plain shaft, there are three faces, one above the other, each one carved separately and each one wearing a different expression. They are named below.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e4. The blade has three faces and no edge.\u003c\/strong\u003e This is what makes a \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e a \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e. A triangular section, tapering the whole way to a single point. It cannot cut. It can only go down, and hold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e5. Serpents bound into the blade.\u003c\/strong\u003e Along all three faces, \u003cem\u003enagas\u003c\/em\u003e run in low relief, twisting around one another the length of the taper. On the old ritual pieces the serpents are shown bound to the blade — the poison brought under the thing that subdues it, carried rather than destroyed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e6. The blade comes out of a mouth.\u003c\/strong\u003e At the junction, the taper emerges from the jaws of a \u003cem\u003emakara\u003c\/em\u003e. The blade is not fitted to the handle. It is being born out of it — which is the older and more difficult way to model the transition, because the two forms have to flow through each other with no seam anywhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e7. Beaded bands between every section.\u003c\/strong\u003e Crown to prongs, prongs to first head, head to head, head to makara: every joint is marked with a line of raised grains, each grain cut individually. They are the smallest things on the piece and there are more of them than of anything else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e8. Nothing is plain, anywhere.\u003c\/strong\u003e Turn it over. The scroll and cloud work runs around the full body of the handle, the reverse faces of the blade are carved to the same depth as the front, and even the bail is cut with its own pattern. There is no back on this object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Three Heads\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGaruda\u003c\/strong\u003e — at the top. The bird that eats serpents and is born already able to fly. In the Himalayas he is what you call on when the poison is the kind that has no antidote: illness that came from nowhere, malice you cannot trace, fear with no object. Garuda does not negotiate with any of it. He swallows it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Lord of the Charnel Ground\u003c\/strong\u003e — in the middle. The protector who keeps watch over the cremation ground, the one place where nobody can pretend any longer. His face is not there to frighten you. It is there to remind you what is actually true, which is the one thing that makes a person hard to frighten.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVajrakilaya\u003c\/strong\u003e — at the base, where the handle becomes the blade. The wrathful one whose own body \u003cem\u003eis\u003c\/em\u003e this dagger. He is not holding the \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e; he is the \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e, and the point at the bottom is the point of him. Of all the wrathful forms, he is the one invoked when something has to be finished rather than managed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Meaning\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWrathful is the most misread word in this tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese faces are not angry at you. In Tibetan iconography, wrath is what compassion looks like when patience has stopped being useful — when the kind approach has been tried for years and the thing is still there. There are situations a gentle face cannot reach. These three are for those.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSo the \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e is not a weapon and not a decoration. It is a reminder, in silver, that some things in a life do not get talked round, or waited out, or gently encouraged to leave. They get pinned.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eMay what needs ending in you be ended cleanly, and stay ended.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMore hand-carved Tibetan work in our \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/tibetan-buddhist-jewelry\"\u003eTibetan Buddhist Jewelry\u003c\/a\u003e collection.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMaterial \u0026amp; Craftsmanship\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eS925 sterling silver, hand-carved and hand-engraved\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePure Silver Edition: no gold and no stones\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e24K Fire-Gilded Edition: 24K gold, traditionally fire-gilded; natural garnets, hand-set in the crossed vajra crown\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eForm after a Ming-dynasty \u003cem\u003ephurba\u003c\/em\u003e of the Yongle period\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eFour-pronged crossed vajra crown\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThree wrathful heads: Garuda, the Lord of the Charnel Ground, Vajrakilaya\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThree-sided blade with \u003cem\u003enaga\u003c\/em\u003e relief on all three faces, issuing from a \u003cem\u003emakara\u003c\/em\u003e mouth\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e65 × 40 × 12 mm \/ 2.6 × 1.6 × 0.5 in · 20 g \/ 0.7 oz\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eChain: titanium bead chain, approximately 65 cm \/ 26 in, included; or silver chain with a carved garuda S-hook (+$300)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOxidised and hand-finished\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTraditional Fire-Gilding\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003e(24K Fire-Gilded Edition only)\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGold foil is fused onto the S925 silver at approximately 900°C. Gold melts at 1063°C, so the work happens inside a narrow window: hot enough for the gold to bond, not hot enough for it to run. Every line is then re-cut by hand under a 40× microscope, so the gold follows the serpents and the beading without filling the undercuts that give the carving its depth. More in \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/fire-gilding\"\u003eTraditional Fire-Gilding\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCaring for it\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Pure Silver Edition has no stones and no gilding, which makes it the least demanding piece we make. Silver darkens with time — on a piece carved this deep that is usually an improvement, since the recesses hold the patina and the raised work stays bright. If you want it lighter, a soft cloth on the high points is enough.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn the Fire-Gilded Edition the gold needs nothing extra. The garnets are set deep and take ordinary wear; avoid hard knocks on the prong tips and wipe the pendant dry after it has been in water.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDo not put either edition in an ultrasonic cleaner; the carving is too fine to want that kind of treatment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Kangrinboqe Sacred Art","offers":[{"title":"Pure Silver Edition \/ Titanium Bead Chain","offer_id":54543656386833,"sku":"BJ0026","price":770.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24K Fire-Gilded Edition \/ Titanium Bead Chain","offer_id":54724103700753,"sku":"BJ0026-2","price":970.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Pure Silver Edition \/ Silver Chain with Garuda S-Hook","offer_id":54724134797585,"sku":"BJ0026-3","price":1070.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24K Fire-Gilded Edition \/ Silver Chain with Garuda S-Hook","offer_id":54724134830353,"sku":"BJ0026-4","price":1270.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0980\/9179\/4705\/files\/20260924145345_117_86.jpg?v=1790235178","url":"https:\/\/kangrinboqesacredart.com\/products\/phurba-vajrakilaya-ritual-dagger-pendant","provider":"Kangrinboqe Sacred Art","version":"1.0","type":"link"}