What is the difference between a buddhist prayer beads and a Catholic rosary?
The purpose of the Rosary is to help keep in memory certain principal events or mysteries in the history of our salvation, and to thank and praise God for them. There are twenty mysteries reflected upon in the Rosary, and these are divided into the five joyful, five luminus, five sorrowful and five glorious mysteries. Praying the Rosary is a type of contemplation.
About ten bucks, depending on where you buy them. :-)
Excellent question. For starters, one is Buddhist and one is Catholic. It sounds like I'm being a smart aleck, but that really is the point. A christian has a path to greater relationship with Christ mapped out, and He even taught us how to pray. If a catholic takes their rosary beads and says, "Time for Buddhist meditation" they are leaving that path, no matter what kind of beads are in their hands.
Both are tools to help one remember prayers, but the view of Christian orthodoxy is that the prayers couldn't be more different.
The other responses to your question missed the point. But whether you were looking for the point is another question.
Are you asking what the object of using Buddhist prayer beads compared to the object of using the Catholic rosary is?
Because, while the two look similar, they are easily seen to look different. A child can tell which are rosaries and which are Buddhist beads. Although a child might have a more difficult time telling Buddha beads apart from Mardi Gras beads, for example.
And there is a case in point: what is the objective of using Mardi Gras beads? Or, more tellingly, is the object of using Buddhist beads closer to the object of using Mardi Gras beads or to the object of using rosary beads? IOW, the physical beads and the superficial action of their use (keeping track of spoken words) is not as important as the intended purpose of their use.