Prayer Wheel Shapes
The shape of a prayer wheel is what gives it a character in terms of aesthetic communication to the eye. The pursuit of perfectly harmonious curves and lines in an art piece is a transcendent practice in meditation for the artist. This is what we strive to embody in every prayer wheel we make. Of course different people are drawn to different shapes and designs, which is why we offer several types of designs for our custom prayer wheels. These shapes are rough guides to the type of look you might want. Every prayer wheel is slightly different as we hand make them one at a time. When ordering a custom prayer you can either leave the shape to the artist’s choice or select one of the design types from below for your prayer wheel.
Tara’s Nipple– This shape was designed through a process with our teacher H.E. Garchen Rinpoche during several years of back and forth prayer wheel designs we made for him. As he said it: “The nipple on top reminds us of our mother’s, the nipple is Tara.” The edges were also rounded to prevent any sharp edges from poking him when he carried his prayer wheel around the world on his teaching tours.
Crystal Top- There is nothing quite like the sparkle of fine crystal in the light. This is especially true when the crystal is mounted on top of a prayer wheel. We have an excellent source of fine clear egyptian crystal which we use standard on our prayer wheels. Due to popular demand we also use Swarovski crystals in several colors on request. Prayer wheels with crystals mounted in the top generally have finer curves and lines than the nipple top to accentuate the overall look of the crystal. Below is a small Gallery showing some of the crystal tops.
Temple Top– This design evokes the lines of a Buddhist temple. 
Cabochon Top-This is similar to the crystal top but with a beautiful natural stone cabochon mounted in the top instead of a crystal. Please check with us on the availability of Cabochon stone types and sizes.
