Mani stone

The preferred technique is sunk relief, where an area around each letter is carved out, leaving the letters at the original surface level, now higher than the background. The stones are often painted in symbolic colours for each syllable (om white, ma green, ni yellow, pad light blue, me red, hum dark blue), which may be renewed when they are lost by weathering.

Mani walls

Along the paths of regions under the influence of Tibetan Buddhism, mani stones are often placed in long stacks along trails, forming mani walls. Buddhist custom dictates that these walls should be passed or circumvented from the left side, the clockwise direction in which the earth and the universe revolve, according to Buddhist doctrine.

They are sometimes close to a temple or chorten, sometimes completely isolated and range from a few metres to a kilometre long and one to two metres high. They are built of rubble and sand and faced with mani stones engraved in the elegant Tibetan script.