Materials
A wide variety of materials are used to make mala beads, though there are common standards. Beads made from the seeds of the rudraksha tree are considered sacred by Saivas, devotees of Siva, while beads made from the wood of the tulsi plant are used and revered by Vaishnavas, followers of Vishnu. Some Tibetan Buddhist traditions call for the use of animal bone (most commonly yak), but sometimes human bone is used, those of past Lamas being the most valuable. Others use wood or seeds from the Bodhi tree or seeds of the Lotus plant. Semiprecious stones such as carnelian and amethyst may be used, as well. The most common and least expensive material is sandalwood. In Hindu Tantra, as well as Buddhist Tantra (or Vajrayana), materials and colors of the beads can relate to a specific practice.
Read more about this topic: Hindu Prayer Beads
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—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Young children learn in a different manner from that of older children and adults, yet we can teach them many things if we adapt our materials and mode of instruction to their level of ability. But we miseducate young children when we assume that their learning abilities are comparable to those of older children and that they can be taught with materials and with the same instructional procedures appropriate to school-age children.”
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“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)