One Eye & Yungdrung Motif, 41.2×12.7mm, Pitch-Black Agate (At-072326-1ESWBS)

🪨 Natural agate. Unretouched photos. What you see is what ships.

This bead carries two motifs on opposite faces, and they could not be more different. One face holds a single concentric eye. The other holds a yungdrung. Turn from one to the other and the bead moves from the symbol of perception to the symbol of eternity.

The eye sits on the main face: a pitch-black pupil enclosed by a warm cream oval ring, set against the pitch-black ground, with two vertical cream stripes flanking it. Turn the bead 180° and the yungdrung appears, the four-armed turning symbol etched in bold cream and peach-cream lines across the full width of the face. Between these faces, the side views show each form in part, an arc of the eye ring at one turn, the top of the yungdrung at the other, before each motif comes into clear view.

The macro photographs show the bloodspots. The natural cinnabar (硃砂, zhūshā) here appears not as pinpoints but as continuous warm orange-red streaks along the inner edges of the motif lines, tracing the border between the cream eye ring and its black pupil, and following the edges of the yungdrung arms on the other face. The cinnabar sits right at the edges where the etched cream meets the dark ground, so the motif lines seem to glow with a reddish warmth up close. Learn more in our guide to bloodspots in dzi beads.

Condition is good for a piece of this age. Fine surface micro-texture is present across the black zones, visible under macro, consistent with centuries of wear and handling. No cracks or chips are visible.

The One Eye and Yungdrung (གཡུང་དྲུང་) Motif

The single eye dzi is one of the most fundamental forms in the Tibetan tradition, a single circle of awareness understood as the eye of wisdom. The yungdrung is the central sacred symbol of the Bön tradition, the swastika in its original, ancient form, which long predates and has no connection with its 20th-century misuse. In Tibetan and Bön cosmology the yungdrung represents what is eternal, self-arising, and unchanging. Together, the eye and the yungdrung pair perception with permanence: the eye that sees, and the ground that never changes. Read more in Dzi Motifs and Their Interpretations.

Specifications

• Motif: One Eye and Yungdrung; concentric eye on the main face, yungdrung on the opposite face; vertical stripe separators
• Length: 41.2mm
• Diameter: 12.7mm
• Form: Barrel
• Material: Natural agate
• Age estimate: Antique, 300–500 years
• Condition: Good; fine age-consistent micro-texture across the black zones; no cracks or chips visible
• Bloodspots: Prominent; natural cinnabar streaks along the inner edges of the eye ring and yungdrung arms
• Product ID: At-072326-1ESWBS
• Collections: Antique Dzi | Bloodspot Dzi

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From the blog

• Dzi Motifs and Their Interpretations
• Tibetan Dzi Beads: Luck, Fortune and Meaning

All photos are unretouched. Colour and surface detail are as photographed.

📷 8 unretouched product photos included.