White Copper Nine-Syllable Mantra Hammered Enamel Pendant

Nine characters — lin, bing, dou, zhe, jie, zhen, lie, qian, xing — no more, no fewer, from Ge Hong’s Baopuzi, inner chapters, in the section on climbing and crossing. The original is a secret invocation of the Six Jia recited on entering the mountains, said to keep off what is baleful there. Carried to Japan it was written with the last two swapped, so the order differs from the Chinese, and both readings exist. Its use is for going into the hills, not for every day, and that should be said plainly. Mantra plaques in folk custom are mostly ornament, rarely ritual implements.

Enamel means a glassy glaze packed into channels in metal, fired until it flows, then ground flat when cold. The methods divide into cloisonné, champlevé and translucent, with a wide spread in price: cloisonné first bends metal wire into the outlines, soldered one piece at a time, the heaviest labour of the three. Which method this one is, I will not pronounce; look for wire on the piece and you will see at once. Enamel shrinks in the firing, so the channel needs allowance; leave too little and the glaze sits below the copper and feels sunken.

The hammered texture is the other half of the work. The surface is struck with shallow dents, glaze settling in the hollows and copper showing on the highs, so light scatters and the shine of the enamel stops being harsh. Uneven hammer marks are normal; marks as even as a machine press are what should make you look twice. The dents should be staggered — line them up and you have a washboard. A hammered face feels like fine sandpaper and smooths under the hand over years.

The options include white pattern and white lettering, and a choice of pendant alone or with a Chopin chain. White pattern means the design is left uncoloured; white lettering means the characters are filled white. The two behave very differently in light: white pattern reads plain from a distance, white lettering only shows its characters close up. Match the option before ordering and do not go by the main photo alone. The price difference is small; the difference is in the process, since filling white means blocking the copper colour underneath.

Enamel chips if knocked, and a chip cannot be filled in — the piece has to be remade. Washing hands, moving furniture, playing ball: take it off for all of it. As a gift, write the source of the nine characters on a slip of paper; that is far more decent than saying it is powerful. People ask whether they can sleep in it. I say there is no need — it is uncomfortable to lie on and easily knocked. They ask whether the enamel will come off. I say it comes off if you knock it, and not otherwise. Store it in its own bag, not in with a set of keys.