Question: You said the glories of the holy name a while ago. Can an initiated devotee after his leaving the body, can any other devotee chant on his beads? If that is not allowed, then, what do we do with his beads?

Jayapataka Swami: Question was, if someone dies, can we use his japamala to chant on? I saw the japa beads alleged to be the japa of Jagai Madhai in Katwa. So they were on the samadhi. Similarly, on the samadhi of Haridas Thakur there are beads on top of his samadhi. I don’t know if it actually means that they stay there. Generally, we don’t chant on the beads of great devotees. One time I was given beads by a secretary of Srila Prabhupada. At that time, I chanted and I felt great ecstasy. I came back from the park after I chanted 32 rounds, nonstop! I was feeling more ecstasy. That secretary told me, oh! You have the beads, they are Srila Prabhupada’s beads, I shouldn’t be giving them to anybody! I gave you by accident! So I had to give them back. So it was not quite the same. So, maybe some deceased devotee’s beads may be very powerful, but maybe not be meant to be glorious, and generally we don’t chant. We give those in the devotee’s samadhi or something. But I didn’t see anything particularly for or against it in the sastra, so I cannot really say.
22-FEBRUARY-2020 SRI MAYAPUR DHAM, INDIA