rudraksha

Etymology

From Sanskrit रुद्राक्ष (rudrākṣa, “Rudra's eyes”), from रुद्र (Rudra, “Rudra, a Rigvedic deity of wind and storm”), and अक्ष (ákṣa, “eye”), variant form of अक्षि (ákṣi).

noun

  1. The dried seed of a large evergreen broad-leaved tree, Elaeocarpus ganitrus, which is traditionally used as prayer beads in Hinduism.“But the room […]contained many tokens of her family and forebears—among them such relics as her dead father's wooden clogs, a necklace of rudraksha beads left to her by her mother, and faded imprints of her grandparents' feet, taken on their funeral pyres.”