SULEMANI & SOLOMON BEADS
A Journey Through Time, Belief, and Beauty

THE NAMES WE GIVE TO BEADS
In the vibrant world of ancient beads, names matter. They carry with them entire histories, beliefs, and worldviews. One such pair of names - Sulemani and Babagoria—invites us into the layered world of agate beads originating in Central India. While both terms describe the same category of black or brownish agate beads with white stripes, each name tells a very different story.

Babagoria Beads
Bead historian Jamey Allen argues that the most historically accurate name might be Babagoria, a term rooted in the local dialects in Gujarat near Indian production and excavation sites. In this context, Baba means holy man and Goria (a dialectical variant of goriya) means bead - thus, Babagoria: 'Holy Man’s Bead.'

Interestingly, the ancient agate mines of Ratanpur, Gujarat, were once called Baba Ghori, echoing this dual sacred-commercial identity. These beads were worn by saints, and their holiness was thought to be reciprocal: the beads conferred spiritual status on the wearer, and the sanctity of the wearer blessed the bead.

Yet, the term Babagoria may no longer be culturally appropriate in today’s discourse. While it likely originated with devotional intent - Baba meaning holy man and Goria referring to a bead - the word goria also carries a more loaded meaning in several South Asian languages: 'white-skinned.' This linguistic overlap touches a deeper nerve, reflecting how color and social status have long been entangled in the region’s cultural fabric.

In Sanskrit, the word varna means both 'color' and 'class,' revealing the conceptual foundation of the caste systemwhere skin tone subtly reinforced social hierarchy. What was once a name grounded in regional spirituality now risks echoing the same color-coded caste logic that many are working to question and dismantle.

 The irony, of course, is hard to miss: modern collectors of so-called Babagoria beads now prize them for being as black as possible.

Sulemani Beads
Sulemani is the globally recognized name among traders today. It refers to a particular kind of opaque black or deep brown agate - often with one or more white stripes.
 

They gained prominence in Islamic India, especially among the Sufis from the 12th century onward. Sulemani agate, also known locally as Sulemani Hakik, is revered across Indic and Islamic traditions for its spiritual properties - believed to offer grounding, clarity, and protection from negativity. It furthermore connects the beads to the legendary King Solomon (Suleman), who in Islamic lore was a master of wisdom and spiritual forces.

Before these beads became Sufi prayer tools, Sulemani beads had already lived long, complex lives. They were in circulation millennia before the rise of Islam in India. Archaeological evidence and burial contexts suggest that many of the beads were originally created as funerary objects, religious amulets, or high-status trade items in pre-Islamic India.

What the Sufis encountered were not newly fashioned talismans, but ancient relics infused with earlier layers of spiritual and social meaning. By incorporating them into tasbih (prayer beads), they layered Islamic mysticism over an older sacred grammar. This recontextualization didn't erase the beads' origins—it deepened them. The Sulemani bead thus became a vessel of multiple spiritual inheritances, carrying echoes of the distant dead and the prayers of the living.

Bhaisajya Guru Beads
Long before the arrival of Islam, these beads were used in Buddhist malas, especially in Afghanistan, a predominantly Buddhist region until around 1000 AD. In Mahayana Buddhism, these are known as Bhaisajyaguru beads, named after the Medicine Buddha. These beads are believed to remove disease, prolong life, and carry blessings of previous enlightened beings who may have worn them.

If a spiritually resonant name were to be applied retrospectively, Bhaisajya Guru beads - in reference to the Medicine Buddha, protector and healer - might capture the contemplative and protective nature these beads have come to represent.

WHY WE PREFER 'SULEMANI'
In recognition of the current global discourse, we prefer the name Sulemani. This choice avoids confusion, misinterpretation, and racial issues.

 
ANCIENT USAGE: FROM RITUAL TO CURRENCY
The use of beads as currency wasn't unique to India. Across ancient cultures, long after formal coinage was introduced, certain objects continued to function as parallel forms of exchange. Their value wasn't always tied to official monetary systems - it was rooted in a shared understanding of rarity, symbolism, and trust.
 
Beads, Barter, and Parallel Economies
In ancient Rome, for instance, paying rent with three peppercorns was entirely acceptable. In Nagaland, a single strand of beads could equate to the value of a human life.
Both peppercorns and beads - small, portable, and symbolically charged; demonstrate how seemingly modest items could carry disproportionate economic and cultural weight. Their power lay not just in scarcity, but in recognizability and consistency - essential qualities for anything used in trade.

Beads fit this role remarkably well. Aesthetically compelling and materially durable, they became natural candidates for informal currency. During the Indus Valley Civilization, beads likely served more as spiritual amulets or indicators of social status than as money.
 

 


 But in the post-Indus period, as trade networks expanded and economies grew more intricate, beads transitioned into a circulating form of currency - referred to in some Indian traditions as Niksha. This transformation required a shift: away from the uniqueness of hand-crafted expression toward uniform shapes, colors, and finishes that could be trusted across regions and cultures.
 
Importantly, this kind of object-based economy is not only a thing of the past. In tribal areas of India - such as Orissa and Bastar - non-monetary exchange still thrives. On local markets, up to 70% of goods and services are traded without money, in what is known as bardar vyavahar, or barter trade. An Indian friend of mine, on a recent visit to Orissa, witnessed a woman negotiating with a doctor: rice in exchange for medicine.
 
These modern examples remind us that alternative economies - rooted in trust, community, and shared understanding of value - have always existed alongside official systems. And beads, like peppercorns or rice, once stood at the center of these deeply human exchanges.

FROM UNIQUENESS TO UNIFORMITY
As beads evolved into proto-currency, artistry gave way to standardization. Like Ford’s assembly-line cars, the spiritual and aesthetic individuality of earlier beads was gradually replaced by the economic logic of mass production. Once beads began to function more as cash, they needed to be recognizable and trusted across vast trade networks with different cultures and languages.

This meant adhering to shared visual features as a lingua franca - shapes, finishes, colors—that could serve as a common denominator for traders separated by geography, culture, and language.

This shift helps explain the stark transition from the intricate, handcrafted beads of the Indus Valley to the more uniform Sulemani beads of later periods.

That said, Sulemani or any other type of beads were never fully homogenous. Variations in heat treatment, regional style, and cultural purpose still left room for diversity within and parallel to the emerging standard.
 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SINGLE-LINE SULEMANI BEAD
Few examples illustrate how commodification shapes perception as clearly as the case of the single-line Sulemani bead. Today, this specific type - defined by a single, clean white stripe cutting across a dark agate body - has become one of the most sought-after beads among collectors, particularly in China. Prices have skyrocketed, with some specimens selling for more than three times their weight in gold.

This obsession has grown in tandem with the demand for alternative, portable, and symbolic investment assets - what I would describe as a 'bead bullion' - ancient objects rebranded as investment assets.
 
There is no strong archaeological or textual evidence to suggest that single-line agate beads were especially venerated or seen as a distinct category in ancient India. While it’s reasonable to assume they were recognized and appreciated for their craftsmanship, they existed alongside many other bead types - valued not for minimalism, but for material rarity, technical skill, symbolic geometry, and color.
 

Hindu Complexity vs. Linear Simplicity
It’s likely that the single-line Sulemani belonged to a recognizable type, even in antiquity - but not a privileged one. In early Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the sacred was typically expressed through complex symbolic geometry: the lingam and yoni, Shiva–Shakti dualities, mandalas, and protective eye motifs. These spiritual systems emphasized cosmic form and layered patterning, not linear simplicity.

Thus, there is no indication that the single white line motif held dominant religious significance in early Indic contexts. Instead, spiritual meaning was more often embedded in abstract forms, sacred symmetry, and rhythmic repetition - a worldview where geometry, not minimalism, revealed the divine.

It was only later - especially under Islamic and Sufi influence from around the 8th century onward - that the single-line bead began to carry new associations: the oneness of God, spiritual focus during dhikr (prayer), and protective energy. This was not a continuation of ancient Indian symbolism, but rather a recasting of visual language within a new spiritual grammar.

Are Single Line Sulemanis Difficult to Produce?
A personal anecdote speaks directly to the production question. Around ten years ago, I came across a large collection of near-perfect single-line Sulemani beads in Denmark - some as large as 30 mm in diameter. Intrigued, I sent photos to my most trusted Indian bead expert. His response surprised me: these were not ancient beads, but likely made in Calcutta during the British colonial period, in the Victorian era, for trade with tribal communities in India.

The takeaway? It is not difficult to mass-produce a single-line bead. You simply need a piece of black onyx with one uniform white agate layer running through it—and there you have it. The British did it remarkably well, and, notably, without the help of Idar-Oberstein.
So why, among tens of thousands of ancient Sulemani beads unearthed from excavation sites, do we find so few single-line examples? Not because they were hard to make—but because they were not widely in demand. And furthemore: if they were in demand, why are they then not found in an already separated lot - why mixed coincidently together with all the others?
 

Rarity Today and Significanse in the Past
This contrast between modern value and ancient indifference offers a powerful reminder: what we revere today may not have held the same meaning, or any special meaning at all, in the past. Rarity today doesn’t always equal significance in the past.
 
Even as early as the 8th century onward, Islamic influence slowly introduced new symbolic meanings to beads across South Asia and the Middle East. The single-line Sulemani gradually came to represent: Spiritual protection -  Focus during prayer (dhikr) - The oneness of God

The Lesson from Luck Now
Still, one encounter stands out. In 1992, while living in Lucknow - an Islamic cultural hub known for its fusion of Sufism and royal patronage - I came across an old prayer chain composed entirely of single-line Sulemani beads. It was striking in its cohesion and quality. Regrettably, I didn’t purchase it; the seller was asking $200, which at the time felt excessive. I’ve since come to think of that decision as a missed opportunity.
 
This incident also made it clear to me that even Sufism -and the use of prayer beads within it - was not immune to social stratification. Most poorer Sufis used more common sulemani beads, while single-line Sulemanis were reserved for those with access to wealth and patronage, such as Sufis affiliated with the court.

The above example shows that the evolution of Sulemani beads wasn’t driven by symbolism alone. A practical factor was their role as a universally recognized medium of exchange along pilgrimage routes from India to Mecca. During these long journeys, a strand of Sulemani beads worn around the neck often functioned as a kind of mobile credit system—a wearable reserve of value that could be traded for food, lodging, or other necessities along the way.
 
In such a chain, only a few beads might feature the coveted single white line—these held the highest value. Beads with two or more lines, or simpler patterns, served more transactional purposes: paying for food, shelter, or a night’s rest in a caravanserai.

In this context, the single-line Sulemani wasn’t just a spiritual token - it was a high-denomination bead in a mobile, wearable economy.
 

A Story from Persia – History is Always Complex
Compelling anecdotal evidence suggests that the story of the single-line Sulemani bead may reach deeper into history than often assumed. One of the most respected bead collectors I know - who prefers to remain unnamed - shared that a substantial cache of large, locally made single-line Sulemani beads was unearthed in Iran, dating back over 1,500 years to the Sassanian period. This points to a possible pre-Islamic Persian aesthetic, commercial, or spiritual preference for black agate beads with a single white line.

Given that many Sufis who later traveled to and settled in India hailed from Persia, it is plausible that they carried with them not only mystical teachings but also a cultural reverence for this particular bead form. This reverence may have gradually taken root and evolved within Indian devotional culture. The argument is further supported by the strong Persian Shia influence at the Nawabs' court in Lucknow, a historical center where spiritual and political currents from Persia and India converged.

The Chinese Takeover
Now, there’s a huge leap from the Islamic use of single-line Sulemanis to the average contemporary Chinese collector, who typically has no understanding of bead history whatsoever. For them, these beads function purely as investment objects—assets to be traded like rising stocks.

What began as objects of spiritual, artistic, and communal meaning have become speculative assets, bought and sold by people with no real connection to the traditions that created them. Yet it’s too simple and one-sided to mock a society that has, in just one generation, risen from widespread poverty and illiteracy to a relatively stable middle class. The scale of what Communist China has achieved is often underestimated in the West. I would call it a miracle.

The West Copies China
What deserves more critique, frankly, is the generation of Western collectors who blindly adopt this stripped-down, commercial narrative.
 

In the haze of speculation and mislabeling, where modern markets prize what ancient cultures may have overlooked, it becomes increasingly important to distinguish between bead types not just by appearance, but by their material, historical, and symbolic lineage. This is why I now am about to propose a new term.

TWO TYPES OF SULEMANI BEADS
I’d like to offer a perspective - one that I can't claim to verify with certainty, but which has taken shape through long observation and what I might call my own small razor of Occam.
There appear to be two distinct techniques of processing agate beads, each reflecting a different historical layer of craftsmanship and cultural priority:
 

However, I believe that the majority of these matte, dry-heated beads reflect intentional artistry rather than accidental burning. Their controlled finishes, consistent textures, and aesthetic coherence suggest deliberate craftsmanship—fire not as destruction, but as a tool of transformation.

What I observe in these beads does not resemble uncontrolled charring. A closer look at the bead above reveals intenion. Rather, it points to a slow, systematic, and controlled heating process—likely conducted in sealed clay vessels.
These beads don’t look burnt; they look deliberate, as if the fire was guided with care and patience.That said, here is my best guess for a funeral-heated bead - ashy, dry, brittle, and scarred in a way that feels unintentional:

These two techniques - oil cooking and dry-fire heating - appear to have coexisted for a considerable time, possibly even within the same production centers. However, as trade networks expanded—particularly along the Silk Roads—the demand shifted toward beads that were more durable, uniform, and visually consistent.

So when did oil-cooked beads begin to dominate? Likely when beads needed to survive the rigors of long-distance travel and repeated handling. The dry-fired beads, with their fragility and variable results, gradually gave way to the economic logic of portability and standardization. In the end, it wasn’t just aesthetic preference that drove this shift, but the practical demands of mass commerce.

Yet they remain, rare and evocative: ghosts of an older, more experimental age of bead-making, where the fire left not just polish - but poetry.

ARE THEY EVEN SULEMANI?
Here comes an important observation that leads us away from the funeral and crop burning fires: The more swirling patterns in the pre-oil treated beads cannot arise from heating.
 
The dry cooked beads appear older, rarer, and more mysterious. They are usually white or grey with chaotic black banding and swirling patterns that resist standardization. They often displays eye motiffs or other interesting geometric patterns that do not look accidental:

If true, this throws into question our assumptions about naming, categorization, and provenance. These enigmatic beads resist reduction to labels. Their origin is unknown, their beauty unmistakable, and their story still unfolding.
 

 
Older Dry Heat–Treated Beads
In contrast, the older and much rarer dry heat–treated beads reveal a different philosophy of craft. These were subjected to high temperatures without oil, often in clay crucibles or pit kilns, resulting in matte finishes, dramatic black-and-white banding, and occasionally gray tonal variations.
Below you can see typical specimens of this type:
 

  

 
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However, this method had a drawback: it often made the beads brittle. Cracks, surface scars, and occasional breakages were not uncommon. And yet, these imperfections carry a kind of aesthetic soulfulness—a tactile witness to their fiery creation.

Some have suggested that these beads may have acquired their patina from funeral pyres. I don’t doubt that such examples exist in ancient collections. It’s also possible that some were unintentionally exposed to fire during seasonal crop burnings or other common blazes that still occur across India today.
 

SOLOMON BEADS: A Proposed Subgroup Rooted in Mystery
Inspired by dreams, poetry, and close observation, I propose a new term for a distinct subgroup of older, dry-heated Sulemani beads: Solomon Beads. While they remain part of the broader Sulemani tradition, their unique characteristics - both geological and symbolic - set them apart.
 
The name evokes the mythic legacy of King Solomon's mines: fabled sources of wisdom, wealth, and magic, now lost to history. In a similar way, the true geological origin of many of these beads remains elusive. Unlike their more uniform, sugar/oil-cooked counterparts, Solomon beads often appear to be carved from agate that often cannot be traced to any known or currently active quarry.

From where does this stone material come from?

Historically, most Sulemani agates are believed to have come from well-documented deposits in Gujarat, particularly around Cambay (Khambhat), Ratanpur, and Rajpipla—regions that supported an enormous bead-making tradition stretching back thousands of years. These mines are well-known for producing black or brown agates with white banding, particularly suited to oil-heating and polishing.

Yet, the material found in many Solomon beads tells a different story. Their pale or greyish base tones, swirling black inclusions, chaotic banding, and matte surfaces point to agate of a type not typical of the known Gujarat mines. These beads show no signs of oil or sugar penetration and differ markedly in texture, finish, and visual composition.

Some of this ancient agate no longer exists in modern production, and no known source from India to the Middle East yields agate with these distinct properties.
 

This raises the likelihood that these beads were not only shaped by older, more fragile heating techniques, but also cut from stones extracted from geological sources that are now lost or forgotten—mines or deposits that may have closed millennia ago and left no surviving record. Even in known bead-discovery areas like Jabalpur, such beads are often not of local geological origin. They tend to come from surrounding zones like the Mandala tribal district, Shivani district, and earlier centers of bead-making along the Narmada River in Gujarat and around Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Some of these regions may have once hosted now-defunct agate deposits, active during the early Sulemani bead era—potentially dating back to 3000 BCE.

In this context, Solomon Beads represent more than just an older style of bead—they may also be relics of vanished earth, carved from stone that is no longer accessible, mapped, or understood. Their material mystery only adds to their spiritual resonance.

If this is true, it challenges many of our assumptions about naming, categorization, and provenance. These beads resist being reduced to the clean taxonomies imposed by later, more uniform systems of trade.

A bead is a bead is a bead—but the aura of unknown origin only deepens its mystery. And for me, that mystery is part of what makes ancient beads so magnetic. Like fish moving through water, their paths and origins are elusive—hard to trace, yet full of silent meaning, maybe not for the fish - but for me.

Solomon Beads vs. Sulemani Beads: A Definition
Solomon beads differ in both production, appearance and material qualities. Their larger perforation holes suggest greater antiquity, while their matte surface hints at ancient, dry-heating techniques—or perhaps long-term burial in arid soils.

Whereas Sulemani beads are typically opaque black with white stripes, marked by relatively uniform banding and a glossy, oil-cooked finish, Solomon beads tend to be white or gray with black lines. A visual comparison might look like this:
 

Solomon bead Black on white Matte surface Brittle	Sulemani bead White on black Shiny surface Hard and uniform

The pale or white background of Solomon beads is partly due to the stone not being penetrated by hot oil or sugar - a process that darkens the agate and gives it a glossy finish. But the contrast in Solomon beads is more than just technical. The black lines that traverse these surfaces have a distinct visual identity: they are deliberate, expressive. In these beads, the artist’s brush is black, not white - and what it paints is something uniquely dynamic.

Importantly, even oil cooking cannot alter or erase the internal banding already embedded in the geological structure of the stone. These patterns are born from deep within the earth; fire can enhance them, but not invent them.
While some Solomon patterns are straight, many are fractured, swirling, and unpredictable - a chaotic beauty shaped by stone, fire, and time. The bead shown below does not exhibit the clean, parallel lines typical of Sulemani beads, but rather complex, circular swirls characteristic of volcanic-formed agate. This kind of agate resists symmetry; it doesn’t produce neat banding but instead reveals a fluid, organic motion - spirals within stone, circles within circles.

Such material naturally invites symbolic interpretation. While Buddhism makes use of sacred geometry, it is perhaps Tantric Hinduism - with its dense network of cosmic patterns, mandalas, and metaphysical diagrams like the yantra, yoni, lingam, and bindu - that most richly embodies this layered visual language.
 

Volcanic agate was more than just visually compelling; it served as the perfect medium for expressing sacred meanings in Hinduism's multifaceted religio-cultural landscape. In contrast, the uniform, single-line patterns of Sulemani beads reflect more centralized, cohesive religious and political systems, such as those represented by Islam or imperial China.

In fact, some beads—like the one depicted below—may deserve categorization under terms more rooted in the Hindu cultural context. Yet for clarity, and to avoid adding further confusion to an already complex field, we retain the term Solomon as a subgroup within Sulemani.

Thirty years ago, I received the Solomon bead shown below as a gift from my friend Professor Bhandari, who had sourced it from Rakhigarhi, an Indus Valley site in Haryana.

This suggests that the roots of these extraordinary beads may lie deep within the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the world’s oldest urban cultures.

In summary, these beads are not simply earlier forms of Sulemani; they are shaped from a broader, and in many cases, geologically distinct class of agate—often drawn from sources no longer known or active today.

With origins shrouded in mystery, often shaped from distinct volcanic materials, and marked by irregular, deeply expressive patterns, they merit their own category:

Solomon Beads – vessels of complex mystery and living Hindu history.

PLASTIC VS. PLANETARY
The majority of collectors in Asia reject dry fire-treated beads because of their impermanence and imperfections. But I see them differently. To me, they resemble exoplanets, fragile worlds swirling in forgotten skies.
 

They are maps of inner journeys—scarred, swirling, and ancient—companions for meditation and vessels that hold not just stories, but silence, memory, and flame.

Solomon Beads Are Converging Towards Extinction
Ironically, as Eastern interest in ancient beads grows, authentic Solomon beads are becoming harder to find—not because they've vanished, but because they’re being altered. In Jaipur, traders refurbish these once-distinctive beads by boiling them in oil, darkening their natural hues to mimic the classic Sulemani agates. The goal is aesthetic: to appeal to markets that prize the deep, dark luster of traditional Sulemanis. But in the process, the original identity of the Solomon bead is erased.

This transformation, driven by demand and profit, has led to a strange and quiet erasure—true Solomon beads are not vanishing through time or decay, but through reinvention.
 

Once modified, they are no longer relics of the ancient world, but repackaged artifacts, severed from their original identity and sold under a commercial guise.
Once modified, they are exported to China, re-entering the market under a new guise.
The irony is sharp: in trying to enhance the value of these beads, we lose their true story. What remains is not a relic, but a replica crafted by modern hands.

I can only hope that the few genuine Solomon beads I still hold will find homes far from this commodified compulsion to turn them into cyborgs.

 
CRACKED BEAUTY IS MY RELIGION
My belief system centers on complex beauty—not surface-level prettiness, but transcendent beauty found in the imperfect. I value contradictions: crude forms with sacred presence, objects both forgotten and worshipped.

As Walt Whitman wrote,

'Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes).'

The same is true of these beads.

They are not one thing—they are many.

The ancient dry-heated beads are, in this sense, sublime Solomonic wisdom.
 

They reveal the quiet alchemy of time, fire, and soul. Each is a hub where the soul and the zero meet—where the observer creates the observed.
 
And as Leonard Cohen sang,

'There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.'

But here's the deeper truth: the crack is also how the light gets out.

Each fracture in the bead is a silent beacon, letting soul-light seep through - proving that beauty, like truth, is most radiant where things have broken open.