Kavacha Designs | Sacred Armor™, since 2018
Kavacha means armor in Sanskrit. It is pronounced kuh-VAH-chuh. In Jayashri Triolo’s words: “Traditionally, a kavacha is an amulet carried for spiritual protection. It could contain sacred words written on bark, birch leaf, or another material and worn close to the body.”
Kavachas are your “Sacred Armor™”: openable amulets that let you wear your prayer and most cherished sentiments close to your heart. Every Kavacha opens to a sacred space to hold anything special to you: a handwritten prayer, a lock of hair, sand from a special beach, dust from a holy place, even a loved one’s ashes. In her personal collection, Jayashri has held dust from Vrindaban, India, handwritten mantras, a lock of hair from her daughter’s first haircut and hair from her horse’s mane.
“When I place a prayer inside a Kavacha, I am taking something invisible and giving it a physical home. … I do not believe the metal itself is magic. The power is in what we place inside it, the consciousness with which we place it there, and the Divine presence we invite into that exchange.”
— Jayashri Triolo, “What It Means to Put On Sacred Armor”
How a Kavacha is made
In Jayashri’s words, each piece goes “from concept to creation, starting with my drawing, moving into CAD, casting and finishing.” Every design begins as her pen-and-ink drawing, inspired by the amulets she has collected for more than 40 years and by nature, hardware and architectural features. Her longtime caster’s team builds the 3D model from it, and she checks it for scale and fidelity. Each piece is then cast in metal from its own single 3D print, one print, one cast, not bent from sheet metal or pulled from a reusable mold. It is stone-set where it has stones, finished and hallmarked, and its chamber closes on a silicone seal sized to that design.
The designs range from dainty pendants to large amulets, in sterling silver (925) and in 14K and 18K yellow gold, each made to be handed down for generations.
Jayashri Triolo
Jayashri founded Kavacha in 2018 after wearing amulets she collected for more than 40 years. She is an artist and designer who studied fine arts at Columbus College of Art and Design, where she found her connection on the path of Bhakti yoga. One of the first pieces of jewelry she made there, in the late 1980s, still hangs above the workbench in her studio: bent copper wire, a shark’s tooth and pipestone.
“Kavacha came from my art, but it also came from grief, devotion, love and this spiritual path. It came from my life.”
— Jayashri Triolo, “The Path That Carried Me Here”
Notes from Jayashri
Where each design comes from, and what people carry in it.
Now and then I write about the old amulets behind a design, what people have chosen to keep inside, and the pieces I am making next.
What will you hold in your Kavacha?
See a piece you love, but want to make it even more personal? Jayashri will collaborate with you on a custom design. A custom design starts with a $100 design fee; the price is set once the design is agreed, and half of it is paid as a deposit before casting. Email jayashri@kavachadesigns.com to begin.
What will you hold in your Kavacha?