Original Rudraksha from Nepal, verified before you pay.
The market is full of Indonesian Rudraksha sold as Nepali, plastic beads sold as natural, machine-altered beads sold as wild. Here is exactly how to tell the difference — and how we verify every bead we sell from Kathmandu.
Ridge depth
Genuine Nepali Rudraksha have deep, sharp ridges with clear mukhi divisions visible from the top. Indonesian beads have shallower, more rounded ridges.
The water test, honestly
Folklore says a genuine bead always sinks. In truth density varies with size and drying — real beads can float and fakes can sink. We use sinking only as a coarse sorting filter in-house, never as proof of authenticity.
Mukhi line clarity
Run a fine pin along a mukhi line from top to bottom. On a real bead the line is continuous and natural; on a carved fake the pin will catch or skip.
Surface texture
Real Rudraksha have an irregular, organic surface with small natural bumps and tiny ridges. Machine-altered beads look too smooth or too uniform.
Weight for size
A genuine Nepali bead of a given size sits in a narrow weight band. One far too light for its size is often hollow, unripe, or not rudraksha at all — which is why we publish size and weight with every bead we list.
X-ray verification
The only certain test. An X-ray reveals the natural seed compartments inside the bead. Fakes show drilled holes filled with paste, or no internal structure.
The full walkthrough — every check step by step, and which popular tests to ignore — is in our guide: How to identify a real rudraksha.
Our verification process
- 1. Sourcing. Every bead comes from growers we know personally in the Arun, Tamur, and Bhojpur regions. No middlemen.
- 2. First sort. Hand inspection in Kathmandu under daylight. Damaged, hollow, or visually questionable beads are removed.
- 3. Density check. Water test on every bead. Floaters and tilters are returned.
- 4. Mukhi verification. Each bead's mukhi count is confirmed visually and with a fine pin. We never sell a 4-mukhi as a 5-mukhi.
- 5. Photograph. We send you daylight photos of the actual bead in stock before you pay.
- 6. Optional X-ray. On request we send the bead to an independent Kathmandu laboratory for X-ray and provide the certificate with your order — a paid add-on, quoted with the bead before you pay.
- 7. Lifetime guarantee. If at any point a bead we sold fails third-party authentication, we refund in full. No expiry.