Ganesh Amulets from Thailand

Ganesh is the elephant that is often found in Buddhist temple amulets in Thailand and India.

Ganesh is probably the ultimate – and most revered and respected Hindu god of all of them. Genesh represents the oldest son of Lord Shiva the destroyer. Ganesh’s mother is Parvati – the god of wisdom and learning and the one that removes obstacles from the paths of seekers of the truth.

Before doing anything important a prayer is offered to Ganesh to ensure success.

The Ganesh figure is roundish with an elephant head, 4 human arms and a tusk that has been broken. Usually Ganesh is seated and has one of his legs folded underneath.

In three hands Ganesh holds some tools that are instrumental in enlightenment: Rope, axe, bowl of rice.

The braids in the rope symbolize:

1. Arrogance

2. Illusory Nature of the World

3. Ignorance.

The axe is representative of a follower needing to cut the attachments to the world in order to further mind along the path to enlightenment.

The rice bowl is said to be the quenching or reward one receives as living within the enlightened state full of wisdom, truth, and intrinsic happiness.

In Ganesh’s last hand is nothing… the hand appears to be giving a blessing.

The way Ganesh came about is said to be thus…

Parvati, his mother (or, creator) was said to be bathing and needed someone to stand guard against anyone that may enter. She created a boy for the task. When Shiva returned to where Parvati was bathing he was angry with the boy for blocking his entrance and chopped off his head with his sword.

Parvati was horrified. Shiva tried to make amends and promised to put the head of a beast on instead – and found an elephant head. Parvati was still not all that happy and Shiva declared that before anyone did ANYTHING they should ask for Ganesh’s blessing on the undertaking.

Quite a story!

Kwan Yin Amulets from Thailand

Kwan Yin is the Buddhist goddess of compassion and her figurines, amulets, pendants, and Yant cloths are highly sought after here in Thailand as around the world. Kwan Yin comes from the Chinese Buddhist side and there are a couple of basic poses she is in.

1. Standing like the Christian mother mary – Kwan Yin looks very similar to Mary Magdelan in these poses.

2. Kwan Yin thousand arm pose – this is the amulet that most people choose when they choose a Kwan Yin pendant. She appears to have many arms around her body. Many statues of Kwan Yin in Thailand are also of this same nature.

Wholesale Jewelry from Thailand

We have been asked about selling wholesale jewelry from here in Thailand. Selling bulk/wholesale is something we’ve considered in the past and we’ve had a few inquiries about it recently again. One of the problems we’re up against is the actual sourcing of the Thai amulets in bulk. Our amulets come from Buddhist temples. Buddhist temples sell only a couple pieces of Buddhist jewelry per day on average.

Finding Thai necklaces – silver and gold is not a problem. We can find and sell wholesale necklaces easily.

It’s finding the Buddhist amulets in any quantity that is quite a difficult situation. What we suggest is that if you’re going to try to find a lot of Thai pendants to sell:

Find some that you like at our www.ThaiAmuletSales.com site and order one of each. Figure out which amulets you really like… Ask us how many you can purchase at a time. We’ll try to find as many as we can and put in an order at the temple for more if you require more. We rarely keep any jewelry in wholesale quantities on-hand because we just don’t know what will sell from day to day. Better if we wait to buy it when you order it.

Another problem with wholesale jewelry from Thailand is shipping. Thai Post Service and customs are fickle and we never know what is going to happen with shipments. This means we do one of two things…

1. We send everything through DHL or Fedex and you’ll have to pay customs tax on it when it enters your country. We label the amulets as ornaments – which they are, but still – customs does what it wants and can charge you customs tax if they feel like it.

2. We send an amulet at a time, 2 maybe at a time… over time. This has worked well for us – and it’s how we send 99% of all Thai amulet orders because we just don’t want to take a chance on losing them to either Thai or your country’s customs staff.

3. The third option is… If you know someone that is coming to visit Thailand and you want us to send your order along with them – we can do that. They will be stopped at customs at the airport and asked if they have anything to declare- if it’s only 10 amulets or so – one can probably declare them and pay a tax and they’ll get through. Otherwise customs may just keep them.

See what we’re up against?

Wholesale Buddhist amulets from Thailand are tough to come by – legitimately. Sure you can buy amulets from some amulet stores in bulk by the hundreds and customs – and nobody cares… why is that? The amulets are not authentic and cost but a few baht (under $0.20) and nobody cares about those. If you want to sell those amulets you can find many suppliers of that kind of amulet. Not us though…

New Birthday Charms – Day of Birth Pendants

We have 7 new Thai Buddha birthday pendants up at our main Thai Amulet Sales site today – as a result of a 3 hour effort until 2 am last night. I never think it will take very long – and I’m a perfectionist when it comes to optimizing for Google so it always takes a lot longer than I predicted at the start.

These are Day of Birth Buddha Pendants – Each day shows Buddha in a different pose. If you were born on Saturday you’d see this amulet on the right which is Buddha sitting in a meditation posture (half-lotus) sitting position on top of the coiled naga (serpent) body and with the cobra heads outlining his head from behind. This is a classic figure and widely used in Buddhist temples and shrines across Thailand.

If you’re going to buy a birthday gift for a fellow Buddhist family member, friend, or loved one you should have a look at these very unique gifts from Thailand. Aren’t you tired of buying the same boring gifts for birthdays?

These birthday charms – pendants are also ideal gifts for graduation and even Christmas. Buy one for someone just because you love them – they’re pretty inexpensive and we can ship them immediately for just $9 shipping – worldwide.