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Mani stones are stone plates, rocks, or pebbles inscribed with the six-syllabled mantra of Avalokiteshvara Mani Stone ( Om mani padme hum, hence the name mani stone) as a form of prayer in Tibetan Buddhism. The term mani stone may also be used to refer to stones on which any mantra or devotional designs (such as ashtamangala) are inscribed or painted. Mani stones are intentionally placed along the roadsides and rivers or grouped together to form mounds, , Mani stone at the British Museum or sometimes long walls, as an offering to spirits of place or genius loci. Creating and carving mani stones as devotional or intentional process art is a traditional sadhana of piety to yidam. Mani stones are a form of devotional cintamani.
The preferred technique is sunk relief, where an area around each letter is carved out, leaving the letters at the original surface level, now higher than the background. The stones are often painted in symbolic colours for each syllable ( om white, ma green, ni yellow, pad light blue, me red, hum dark blue), which may be renewed when they are lost by weathering.
They are sometimes close to a temple or chorten, sometimes completely isolated and range from a few metres to a kilometre long and one to two metres high. They are built of rubble and sand and faced with mani stones engraved in the elegant Tibetan script.Rizvi, Janet. 1998. Ladakh, Crossroads of High Asia. Oxford University Press. 1st edition 1963. 2nd revised edition 1996. Oxford India Paperbacks 1998. 3rd impression 2001. pg. 205.
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