Our story

A journey that changed everything—
and never really ended.

In the mid-1990s, I raised enough money in two months to do something I'd only dreamed of: travel through Asia on a deeply spiritual journey. I didn't know it at the time, but that trip would become the foundation of everything Namu Baru is today.

Our group started in Singapore, then made our way to Nepal, where we trekked eight days through the Himalayas—staying in Sherpa villages, walking paths where people still plowed their fields with ox and plow, watching snow fall on the ridgeline above us in the night. I remember waking in the dark and seeing the mountains across the valley in the moonlight. They felt ancient and alive, as if they were watching.

From Nepal we traveled into India—the Rajasthan desert, camel treks, thousand-year-old Jain temples, the Taj Mahal at dawn, bathing in the Ganges river at sunrise in Varanasi, an Indian classical music festival, and a morning mass in Calcutta where I sat just twenty feet from Mother Teresa, praying fervently even as she was ill. I meditated beneath a descendant of the original Bodhi Tree in Bodhgaya, speaking with Buddhist monks about the nature of the mind and Buddhism. I spent weeks in the community of the renowned spiritual teacher Papaji in Lucknow. I taught English at a school run by a Tibetan Buddhist Rinpoche in Nepal. I visited a Swami in the mountains in Nepal. I worked alongside people in vulnerable communities throughout India and Nepal. I loved the traditional arts & crafts and was gifted with a rudraksha seed by a wandering holy man.

Then I made my way to South Korea.

Korea is where the business was born. Walking through Buddhist temples, hearing the resonant peal of temple bells echo through mountain valleys at dusk, celebrating Buddha's Birthday in Seoul with thousands of people carrying paper lanterns through the streets for miles—I was completely immersed. And then one day I picked up a strand of Korean cedar malas and thought: people back home need to experience this.

I was right.

I started Namu Baru in 1997, initially bringing back incense and tea ware followed by prayer beads and malas and other traditional arts & crafts from Korea. Over the years I've made countless return trips—to source, to learn, to stay connected to the cultures and the craftspeople I love. But spiritual jewelry - prayer beads have always been the heart of it. They connect people to something ancient and meaningful—and they connect me, every single day, to that journey that changed the course of my life.

I've visited temples across Korea, Japan, China, Nepal, and India. I've sat with monks, shared meals beside temple gates, walked pilgrimage paths, and built relationships that span decades. Namu Baru isn't just a wholesale import company—it's the living expression of a spiritual journey that began with a miraculous trip and has never really stopped.

Every bead we carry has a story behind it. So do I.

Founded 1997 · Brier, Washington

— Chris Overholt, Founder