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The story of the kompoloi

The Hindu – Buddhist prayer garland
Tradition places the origin of the kompoloi in northern India, around 500 BC. The story begins with a spiritual master who assigned a disciple of his, who did not know how to count, to say 108 prayers. To help him, the teacher collected 108 seeds, pierced them, threaded them into a rope and tied the ends. Thus, he created a simple tool for counting prayers, ideal for those who did not know arithmetic.

In the Indian epic “Ramayana” (200 BC), the kompolois of the Indians were called “jeppian”, from the Sanskrit word “jepa” which means prayer. The beads on Hindu prayer books were called “mala”, each one representing a god of the Hindu pantheon.

Originally, prayer garlands were made from simple pitted seeds. Little by little, however, they evolved into elaborate jewelry made from materials such as amber, sandalwood, crystals, ivory, and animal bones.

In 800 AD Buddhism arrived in Tibet and prayer beads traveled with it. Tibetan prayer books also numbered 108 beads, divided into groups of three larger beads, which symbolized the Buddha, the doctrine and the community.

 

The Muslim kompoloi
The birth and history of the Muslim kompoloi is a little more clear. The Buddhist prayer measuring tool piqued the interest of Muslims when they first came into contact with the world of India. Returning to their homelands they brought with them the Tibetan kompoloi, the religious use of which was incorporated into the Islamic tradition. Islamic kompolois consist of 99 beads and are divided into three sections of 33 beads, separated from each other by special beads – partitions. The number 99 is not accidental, as the addition of the hundredth bead symbolizes the completion of a complete prayer cycle.

 

The western kompoloi
In the Catholic world, the kompoloi arrived through the Crusaders and became widespread. In many 13th-century graves, intact rosaries were found, made of beads strung on thin wires, which had been placed as offerings or talismans.

Saint Dominic (1170-1221) was the first to give a purely religious function to the kompoloi. Western chapelets consist of five dozen beads, with a thicker bead separating each dozen and a cross at the end.
Touching each small bead, the worshipers chant the Hail Mary, while on each large bead they chant the Our Father.

In 1470 the chapelet became larger and evolved into a rosary, now containing fifteen dozen beads. This change gave rise to the establishment of the famous “Brotherhood of the Koboloi”. Just a hundred years later the acceptance and spread of the rosary in the Catholic world was so great that Pope Gregory XIII established the Celebration of the rosary on the first Sunday of October.

Over the centuries and depending on the characteristics of each people that came into contact with it, the kompoloi took various forms and played special roles, different from its original function, while the variety of materials used for its construction is amazing.
Thus, we find rkompolois made of seeds, knots, ceramics, rocks, bones, horns, semi-precious stones, shells, corals, yusuri, teeth, fossils, shells, wood, dough, bread, chemical compounds, compositions of various materials and in general any material from which it is possible to make a bead and a rosary that we can comfortably hold in the palm and fingers.
In conclusion, we can say that the use of prayer beads started in India and later spread to Asia, the Middle East and, finally, Europe. Although in all religions the symbolism of prayer beads was common, i.e. they were used as a tool to aid prayer and spiritual concentration the materials, the number of beads and religious belief differed.

 

The Greek Kompoloi

The history of the Greek kompoloi
Although the kompoloi was never a means of meditation or prayer for the Greeks, on Mount Athos and other monasteries around 1000 AD the monks took a black woolen rope, made fifty-four knots with it and braided its two ends into a shape cross.

Because with it they prayed to the Virgin Mary, they called it the prayer wreath of the Virgin Mary. Some people called the tool “prosefhitari”, since they prayed with it, others called it “komposkoini”, as for them it was simply a rope with knots, but most called it kompolois, because by touching each knot the person praying also says a prayer. The union of the words node and I say, gave birth to the name “komvologion”, komboloi in elementary.

The first contact of the Greeks with the kompoloi in the form we know it today took place about 500 years ago. It was brought to Greece by the Ottomans, for whom it was a symbol of relaxation, fun and luxury.
During the Ottoman period, Ottoman officials wore a garland made of 33 or 99 amber beads adorned with a rich silk tassel. This garland, which was called tesbih, functioned as a tool for prayer, as a scepter of authority and an indication of financial prosperity, but also as a means of relaxing the nervous system.
This scepter (tesbihi) was quickly adopted by those who cooperated with the Turks, such as lords, kojabasides and charioteers. Little by little, it acquired other functions, such as a sign of love and friendship, a building permit, a seal, but also a means of demonstrating “I”, masculinity and magic.
During the Turkish occupation, along with the tesbih, the religious kompoloi was widely spread. The religious Greeks, hoping for relief from their afflictions through prayer and faith, adopted this tool.
The coexistence of rkompoloi and tesbih resulted in rkompoloi slowly transforming into tesbihi and tesbihi being renamed kompoloi. Thus, many of those who owned the knotted string, the kompoloi, replaced it with beads strung on a string.
The transformation is due to several factors:
• Tesbih beads had a greater weight, volume, colors and sound than the kompoloi knots.
• The “tesbih” allowed users to express their aesthetics, culture and economic prosperity.
The tesbihi has been definitively renamed to kompolois since the beginning of the 21 revolution.
The given ingenuity of the Greek people therefore resulted in giving a completely new dimension to the kompoloi, which quickly became a favorite habit and an integral part of the tradition.

The role of the kompology in Greek society
From the beginning of the 19th century, the perception of the rosary began to diversify. Each person began to give it a different interpretation, modifying its structure and use according to their personality, financial situation and aesthetics. Thus, secular kompolois were born.
Secular kompolois are made from beads of various materials and from components of various metals. Their ending is not a braided cross, but a tassel, a large bead, a watch, or whatever else the wearer chooses.
They can be made of amber, semi-precious stones, silver, gold, silk and general natural materials with positive energy, beneficial for the body.
These are works of art that deserve to be touched with grace, avoiding the strong impact of their beads. The aim is to relax the mind and body, delve into our inner world and awaken our creative imagination, not to cause discomfort to those around us.