Chinese demand for sacred Buddha Chitta seeds leads to industry boom in Nepal

This story by Sonia Awale and Qian Sun originally appeared on Global Voices on November 2, 2025.

It had been a few years since Singha Bahadur Lama returned from a six-year stint in Malaysia, where he worked first in a kitchen and later as a building supervisor. Back home in Kanpur in Kavre, some 56 kilometers from Kathmandu, Nepal, Lama found himself between jobs for several years before a relative asked him to join his Buddha Chitta mala business. Buddha Chitta mala (also referred to as Bodhichitta mala) is a type of prayer bead necklace revered in Tibetan Buddhism.

The necklace beads come from the Buddha Chitta plant (Ziziphus budhensis), native to the Temal region of central Nepal. The seeds of this plant are used to make Buddha Chitta mala.

According to research conducted by the Forest Research and Training Center and published by the Ministry of Forest and Environment in Nepal, Buddha Chitta used to be traded for just NPR 2–5 in the early days. But the price increased when the Dalai Lama claimed that Buddha Chitta found in Nepal is of high quality.

“Twelve years ago, people from Temal gave Dalai Lama a Buddha Chitta mala when he was in Bodhgaya, they told him about its importance, and not long after that, Dalai Lama, while speaking in Taiwan, told his followers that Buddha Chitta has special powers, and that is how the demand including from the Chinese started,” claims Singha Bahadur Lama.

The seeds are classified by the number of faces and their size: One-faced beads are the rarest and most valuable, as are 7–8 mm beads. The smaller the beads, the higher the price they fetch. According to local middlemen, a 108-bead mala would easily cost NPR 1.5 million (over USD 10,630).

“We cannot say if our trees will give smaller beads or even how many faces or clear eyes, it’s all natural,” says Lama, who now works as a consultant,  advising people all over Nepal about planting the tree, and has since spread it across the country.

Such is the demand for high-quality Buddha Chitta beads that a group of 20 men allegedly employed by a Chinese middleman cut down a tree in Rosi last year that supposedly earned NPR 30 million (USD 212,600) the year before. They stormed the village at 1 am and planted socket bombs on the owners’ door and courtyard. Four of the men were arrested but later released on hefty bail.

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Lama himself used to make NPR 10 million (USD 70,880) for each tree he sold. With this money, he built new houses and sent his daughter to Japan, all with Buddha Chitta income. But he says the market changes in unpredictable ways, unlike in the past when Chinese middlemen bought anything regardless of size or quality as long as they were Buddha Chitta. Lama recalls:

He adds:

Ecology of Budha Chitta

Now, almost every household in the Tamang community of Temal and nearby areas, including Kanpur, has planted Budha Chitta, and on average, they have 50 trees. The plant thrives in gravel and sandy soil and needs to be protected from excess water. The tree can grow between 8–10 meters high and starts bearing fruit in the third year and every year after maturity. One tree can fruit for up to 90 years, according to the Forest Research and Training Center.

The fruits are handpicked every June and July, and then have to be processed. The seeds’ hard outer coating is removed either using a Dhiki (a traditional mill) or by boiling, then the beads are washed and dried in the sun for a few days. Dev Lama, 55, also of Kanpur, shares:

While larger plantations of Buddha Chitta favor monoculture, which can be harmful to the environment, for the most part, smallholder families are aware of the dangers of monoculture farming and cultivate it alongside other agricultural crops. They say intercropping is important for soil health and production. 

Dev Lama’s neighbor, Shova Shrestha, 33, adds: “We also continue to grow other plants like maize, chilis, legumes, beans, vegetables like cauliflower and cabbage, and spices, all of which help to keep soil nutrients high.”

Between middlemen

Generally, local farmers do not sell directly to Chinese traders; instead, they deal with local middlemen who take a modest (or sizeable) cut before they take it to Chinese traders. However, even middlemen fetch only a portion of the price that Chinese traders eventually get from customers in China.

And now with the proliferation of the plant, with nearly every family growing several trees, farmers sometimes struggle to find buyers and are often severely short-charged was the case with Maiya Tamang’s family who live in a village outside Temal.

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 “I wasn’t home that day, but my sons later told me that my husband sold an entire tree for just NPR 1,500 [USD 10.60],” recalls Tamang of an incident two years ago. “We asked him why he undersold it, for a price that wouldn’t even get us a sack of rice. He said it was because they weren't selling it anyway, and at least we were getting some amount.” 

A few weeks later, another middleman came looking for Buddha Chitta trees and came across one of the Tamang families. The person asked them to save it for him, gave them NPR 55,000 (USD 388) on the spot, and came back to collect the beads once they were ripe to pluck a few months later. 

Tamang’s family was introduced to Buddha Chitta only six years ago by a relative who had given them some seeds to plant, but only four survived. Maiya’s sons tried to expand by planting more Buddha Chitta, but they cut down the trees in the subsequent years when they saw no immediate return. 

Indeed, while Maiya Tamang, 60, made some profit two years ago, last year there were no buyers because of a hailstorm that destroyed the fruits, but they managed to sell the seeds to families who also wanted to plant Buddha Chitta. Nevertheless, the bead business has augmented the family income, the rest of which is dependent on livestock and agriculture.   

“To be honest, we don’t yet know how to properly care for this plant. In the beginning, we used fertilizers and chemicals, hoping that would help. The plants died instead,” says Sonam Singh Tamang, a neighbor and a relative of Maile who had had a few Buddha Chitta trees in his backyard. “Last year, I bought a new kind of sapling that cost NPR 1,000 [USD 7] from a nursery that assured me it would give better quality beads, which would get me up to NPR 1 million [USD 7,070]. Two more years, let’s see if I’m lucky.”

Saplings for Buddha Chitta usually cost about NPR 500 but some nurseries charged NPR 1,000 or more for those that grow beads with faces or mukhi as higher the number of faces, more money they fetch.

When asked if they ever deal directly with the Chinese, local farmers here say they just don’t have the contact, and even if they did, the language barrier means they would still need a middleman.

“The middlemen aren’t allowed to directly contact the Chinese because then they will lose their profit. They tell us our beads aren’t good, they can only fetch NPR 15,000, even though it is worth 50,000 or more. We also don’t know how to speak with them, even if they did come here,” adds Sonam Singh.

Hikmat Bahadur Mainali in Kanpur agreed: “Chinese are barred from entering the village… I’m sure these beads fetch a much higher price in China than they do here.”

Meanwhile, Singha Bahadur Lama who is a farmer himself but also works as a middleman and sells saplings, says having a new Chinese buyer in the market always helps, as that means more competition to get the beads.

“Otherwise, older Chinese buyers know the situation here and have a setting among themselves, and we do not make much profit,” he says. “Some of my fellow Nepalis have also tried selling it directly in China, but they told me they could fetch much more than they did in Nepal, and on top of that, they incurred lodging and fooding expenses in China.”

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