Benefactor Dzi Bead with Bloodspots, 36.3×11.9mm, Pitch-Black Agate, 1980s Taiwan (V-090126-BENBS)

🌟 Authentic Tibetan Dzi Bead | Unretouched Photos | Vintage 1980s Taiwan

The figure on this bead has its arms raised — but you only see the full gesture when you turn the bead around.

From the primary face, the benefactor motif reads as a complete upward figure: a rounded head, two arms reaching outward and up, a body below. The cream-white etching sits against pitch-black agate with very high contrast, and the figure's gesture — open, outward, offering — is immediately legible. Rotate ninety degrees and the same cream elements resolve into a dense interlocking bracket grid that fills the full side face, the structural complexity of the motif's arms and frame visible as pattern rather than figure. Turn to the reverse and the composition reorganises again: the lower body, the stem, the curved forms. No single angle contains the whole composition. The bead has to move.

Under macro, the cream zones of the motif carry cinnabar bloodspot inclusions — reddish-orange to brick-red individual pinpoints scattered across the white etching and extending into the end-cap stripe. They are clearly visible in the close-up photographs and distributed consistently across the cream elements throughout the bead. The macro shots also show fine natural agate banding within the cream and honey zones — confirming agate material throughout.

The ground is pitch-black agate, confirmed from flat-lit white-background photos. The drill-end caps are warm honey-brown, the stone's own internal colour at both tips. The surface is high-gloss throughout. At 36.3×11.9mm, this is a compact barrel — wider through the centre than its length might suggest, with a substantial presence in the hand. No cracks and no chips are visible in any photo. I independently confirm both.

Cinnabar Bloodspots (硃砂 / Zhusha)

Macro photography documents cinnabar inclusions throughout the cream-etched zones of this bead. Cinnabar — mercuric sulfide (硃砂, zhusha) — appears as individual reddish-orange to brick-red pinpoints distributed across the cream motif elements and end-cap stripe in a cream-zone focused scattered pattern. The inclusions are consistent in coloration and clearly distinguishable from the agate's own natural banding, which also appears in the macro shots as faint honey-toned linear striations within the cream zones.

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The Benefactor Motif

The benefactor dzi (施主天珠) carries the image of a figure with arms raised in the gesture of giving — a patron or benefactor in the act of offering. In Tibetan Buddhist iconography and cultural context, the benefactor is the one who provides material and spiritual support to practitioners, monasteries, and the Dharma. Wearing or keeping a benefactor dzi is understood to attract the qualities of generosity into one's own life — both the capacity to give and the conditions to receive support — and to connect the wearer to the merit generated through acts of giving. The motif is relatively uncommon in the dzi tradition and is valued for its association with abundance flowing in both directions.

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Spec Block

Motif: Benefactor
Length: 36.3mm
Diameter: 11.9mm
Form: Fusiform barrel
Material: Agate — pitch-black body with warm honey-brown at drill-end caps; agate banding confirmed under macro
Age: Vintage — 1980s Taiwan production
Condition: No cracks, no chips. High-gloss surface throughout. Unretouched photos.
Bloodspots: Tier 3 — cream-zone focused scattered with extension into end-cap stripe. Reddish-orange to brick-red cinnabar (硃砂/zhusha, mercuric sulfide) pinpoints documented under macro throughout cream-etched zones.
Product ID: V-090126-BENBS
Collections: New & Vintage Dzi | Bloodspot Dzi | Taiwan Dzi | All Products

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Other Benefactor Dzi in the Collection

— V-072226-BNF — Benefactor Variant (arms-down), 27.4×12.2mm, warm dark brown, Tier 2 bloodspots

Other Vintage Bloodspot Dzi

— V-092224-TrVBS — Treasure Vase with Bloodspots, 37.4×13.9mm, Tier 3
— V-061026-6ETTBS — Six Eye Tiger Tooth with Bloodspots

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Further Reading

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

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Each bead is a one-of-a-kind object. Once it's gone, it's gone.

🌟 Authentic Tibetan Dzi Bead | Unretouched Photos | Vintage 1980s Taiwan

All photos are unretouched. V-090126-BENBS.

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