Tibetan Prayer-Wheels.
(Exhibited at Meeting of Society. See Plate VI. and p. 243.)
The table prayer-wheel shown to the right of Plate VI. has an outer cylinder of copper six inches high and ornamented with bosses containing turquoises. In both the upper and lower panels formed by the central rib is embossed in ancient Indian ranja characters (of the seventh century), the well-known mystical formula, Om! mani pädme hm! (Om! the jewel in the Lotus! Hm!) The side handles may be intended to suspend the wheel or to facilitate carriage. On removing the dome-shaped lid, an inner brass cylinder (seen through the apertures of the outer cylinder in the Plate) is found, through which passes an axle resting in a footstep in the bottom of the outer cylinder and ending, above the outer lid as shown, in a tapering screwed part which can be easily twirled by the fingers. On removing the lid of the inner cylinder, a tightly packed mass of scrolls is visible, which is rotated when the axle is twirled. Seeing a prayer is thought to be as good as saying it, and passing it before one as good as seeing it (even if it is out of sight in a revolving prayer-wheel). The prayer scrolls are usually covered with numberless repetitions of the sacred formula already mentioned, which is expected to free the user from the pains and discomforts of a rebirth after the present life, and to end the illusion of existence. (See Waddell's The Buddhism of Tibet, pp. 148-9, where an illustration of a formula is given.) Almost invariably the scrolls contain only repetitions of a single prayer to a single deity, but in the example shown the scrolls are filled with invocations to four deities, the white, black, yellow, and green gods, who control the powers of evil at the four cardinal points. Each prayer opens with the proper invocations or mantras for these gods, viz. Om! mani pädme hm! (for Chä-rä-si (Avalokita) the white); Om! Vajrapäni hm phät! (for Chā-na-dorje (Vajrapāni) the black); Om! a-ra-pa-ca-na-dhi! (for Jam-yang (Mañjughosha) the yellow); and Om! Tā-re tut-tā-re ture svā-hā! (for Döl-ma jan-k'u (Tārā) the green). The prayer itself, translated, runs, "The yellow god, the white god, the black god, the green god, please kindly to take us all up with you, and do not leave us unprotected, but destroy our enemies. Ye gods, who can do
