By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : Once the world’s only Hindu kingdom, Nepal used to be famous for its rudrakshas, the berry that is believed to have supernatural powers and is used as a prayer bead. Thanks to the invasion of duplicate beads from India, traders in Nepal today lament that the rudraksha business is fast losing its credibility and authenticity.
Anuj Chhetri (not his real name) ran two of the most prominent online rudraksha shops from Kathmandu till rising prices and the flood of cheap duplicates forced him to wind up his business, he says.
Rudraksha is the seed of the evergreen Elaeocarpus tree that grows in the Gangetic plains as well as Himalayan foothills. It is used for making garlands that are used by Hindu sages and are believed to have supernatural powers to confer riches and bliss.
According to Hindu mythology, Lord Shiva, one of the Hindu trinity, wept on seeing the suffering of mankind and the tree sprang up from his tears.
The seed may have one to 21 faces. The 21-faceted seed is the rarest and most expensive.
“In a year, only one or two 21-mukhi (faceted) rudrakshas grow in nature,” says Chhetri. “But the market is flooded by over 1,000 duplicate ones. At present, a genuine 21-mukhi costs nearly three million Nepali rupees, up from 250,000 just three years ago.
“So obviously buyers opt for the duplicates, which are way cheaper.”
The duplicates are manufactured in India’s holy towns Hardwar and Varanasi as well as Mumbai. Now they are also being made in the neighbourhood of the famous Pashupatinath temple here.
In the last three years, prices of the real beads have rocketed, seeing the demand for them.
In Nepal, Bhojpur and Sankhuwasabha are the two districts where most of the trees grow.
Traders fear the number of fakes will go up this month, as the government starts levying a two percent tax on the sale of the berry.
Last year, the trade in genuine rudrakshas crossed 100 million Nepali rupees.
Dealer Mukunda Khatiwada, whose family has been in the business for nearly 40 years, welcomes the tax but says the government should also take steps to crack down on fakes and restore credibility.
“There should be certified authentic dealers, like in the gem trade,” he says. “They should issue certificates of authenticity as well as buy-back guarantees to buyers.”
Khatiwada’s Nepa Rudraksha caters mostly to Indians, especially non-resident Indians (NRIs).
A trader who runs a rudraksha shop on the grounds of the Pashupatinath temple says it would be impossible to stop the trade in fake rudrakshas.
“I sell duplicates,” he says on condition of anonymity. “My clients are mostly middle-class Indian tourists who come to the temple. How can they afford to shell out lakhs to buy a single bead? If I kept only genuine ones, I would go out of business.”
The gullibility of the pilgrims as well as their lack of knowledge about the beads makes it easy for the fake business to thrive, he says.
“Only a trained eye that has been examining the beads for years can distinguish between a fake and a genuine rudraksha,” he says.
“You can’t subject rudrakshas to laboratory tests. Such tests would alter their appearance and properties.”
(Sudeshna Sarkar can be contacted at [email protected])