One type of singing bowl I have collected since the beginning has always intrigued me. Over the years, I made some observations that led me to call them the "monks bowls" and I believe they may have been used in a monastery or group of monasteries.
Their shape is one of the aspects that led me to call them monks bowls. They have a wide base and more narrow top, a shape shared with the typical Buddhist monks bowl.
There are not a huge number of these bowls and they are all very similar, as if they were made by the same shop and possibly for a limited time. They may be geographically distinct or made custom for one locale.
Most of them have a bright golden color which indicates they were very well made and kept clean over the centuries. The older examples are thinner with more oxidation, traits similar to early and later versions of other bowls.
Another aspect to the monks bowls is that they are almost always inscribed and this is one of the mysteries. The inscriptions are done in a pointillistic style, punched with a small round point and hammer.
The inscriptions are generally not as straight, deep and evenly spaced. Decorative engravings done at the time of manufacturing, such as lines or geometric shapes, are done much more carefully, accurately, with larger tools and more deeply cut. These inscriptions, like most other singing bowl inscriptions, seem to have been done long after manufacturing and in a less professional manner.
Early examples of the form often lack the inscriptions. It may be that early inscriptions are worn away. Some of the bowls do show partially worn engravings.
The inscriptions may have been used by a community who instituted the inscriptions to keep track of the monks. They may have been a label for ownership, indicating who should use that bowl or it may have been a way of keeping track of their alms collecting.
Perhaps there is a completely different reason for the inscriptions. I have never found anyone who can decipher them, having tried many scholars, monks and native language speakers. The closest match seems to be Bengali, however Bengali speakers say they do not recognize meaningful words in the inscriptions. Part of the challenge is that the inscriptions usually lack the shirorekha, the horizontal line connecting the characters in Indian and Nepali languages.
The main opinion from language experts is that the inscriptions are names which seems to make the most logical sense as well. If we have an assortment of similar bowls with different inscriptions, it seems most likely they are names. Assuming they are, the monks bowls were likely used by living monks. It is one of the clearest connections we have between the singing bowls and monastic use, as tenuous as the connection may be.
Who used them? Why were they inscribed? Did they use them to collect alms? Did they make sounds while doing so? These are some of the questions I still have about the monks bowls.
See and hear all the monks bowls in The Singing Bowl Museum collection Here
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