Singing bowls produce magnificent aerial tones that make you feel harmonized with the world around, fill your body with health, and soul with meditative calm. Singing bowls still remain a mystery, and the present-day science can not explain the nature of their beneficial and harmonious vibrations.
There are several legends as to their origin
Shamanism was the earliest religion in Tibet, and lamas gained the Knowledge trough direct interaction with Higher Spirits. One day they were told that special articles of power had to appear on the Earth that will help people associate with the Cosmic Mind. And after hours of meditations the lamas could see that those articles looked like bowls and were made of an alloy of 8 metals: gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, tin, zinc, and the eighth unknown metal. The monks tried to make bowls of the first seven metals, but the bowls didn't produce any substantial effect. Then the lamas performed a special ritual and asked the Higher Spirits to help and give a cue how to make those articles of power. In answer to their appeal the Spirits caused a stone-shower onto the Earth, near the holy Mount Kailash. The ore of the stones was that very unknown element. After the monks included the metal in the alloy, the bowls got to produce incredibly intense vibrating tones.
During religious ceremonies thousands of monks gathered in a chamber and performed rituals with singing bowls. With the sound produced by the bowls they clarified the area and invoked down clear flows of energy that influenced the people's mind and made their thoughts brighter.
Spiritual leader of Tibet, The Fifth Dalai Lama, built his first palace – Kungar Awa – behind Drepung Monastery, and the throne was made to the shape of a singing bowl. That is why the origin of bowls is associated with this palace. A singing bowl is considered a holy relic, and on the 15th of July many Tibetans come to Drepung Monastery to venerate it. They believe that a person who hears a bowl singing will never get to naraka (hell).
Another legend associates the origin of the bowls with itinerant Buddhist monks who roamed around the world. They gathered food or money with these bowls and the lofty lesson was to take any handout whatever scant it be and accept anything that is given from heaven. Through this acceptance the monks attained to very lofty states of mind, felt unity with the whole world, experienced spiritual birth and found the gift of love. In accordance with Mahayana, a Tibetan tradition, there were many Buddhas in the past, and there will be many in future. The next Buddha will be known as Maytreya, the name literally meaning "harmonious resonance".
In the traditional western medicine singing bowls are used in aura and chakra therapy and for synchronization of the left and the right cerebral hemispheres. During a so called "sonic bath" a person is relaxing surrounded by several singing bowls of various sizes and the healer is playing them by turn. The vibrations normalize the inner energy and create a feeling of calm and relaxation. The tones of singing bowls are "charged" due to rubbing of wood and metal. This results in a number of effects, such as ability to raise receptivity of some glands that serve as switch keys between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. By playing or watching singing bowls a person finds harmony, understands the wonderful power of sound and the nature of quiet. Vibrations from a bowl are like an act of creation. The masculine energy of the mallet-resonator wakes the feminine energy of the bowl. Silence and sound, yin and yang, a man and a woman... Singing bowls embody the basic principle of the world that is coupling.
"Tibetan Singing Bowls", transl. by Yana Soboleva
