The Opelousas courier., 1889-03-23
THIRET'S ~PRAYER-WHEEL
One of the Strangest Contrivanees 10
Worship Ever Invented.

One OF the Strangest ~Contrivances ZOE
Worship Ever Invented. =
One of the strangest contrivances fo7
religious purposes ever invented ~
any people Is the prayer-wheel OF LII D.
ct. Thomas Manning, the only I'm
glishman who eve saw Lhassa' fFho
visited Thibet at the commencement
of the present century, describes these
wheels, which he calls "whirligigs, as
cylinders turning freely on an axis,
with sacred sentences and prayers IN
side. Turning the whirligig is equiv
alent to reciting the sentence, and is a
substitute for it. The hand-wheel is
carried always by pious persons and
is constantly turned, while another
kind is fixed on an axis in the ground,
around which it revolves. In the ave-
nues of the temple, he says. there are
hundreds of them, which good souls
twist one after another as they pass
along. Others contain rolls of printed
prayers and are fixed in row on the
walls of temples, near villages, and in
streams to be turned by water-power.
They are said to have been in use for
Aore than one thousand years.
SMr. Andrew Wilson says that the
Thibetans. are the most p~re-eminently
praying people on the face of the earthe
''They have praying stones, praying
pyramids, praying flags flying over
every house. praying wheels, praying
mills, and the universal prayer, ON
mani padme haun,' is out OF
their mouths" A German writer on
Lamaism says of this sentence, which
literally means 30 God! the jewel in
the lotus" that these six syllables are,
of all the prayers of earth, that which
is most frequently repeated, written,
printed and conveniently oNered up by
mechanical means. "They constitute
the only prayer which the common
Mongols and Thibetans know; they are
the first words which the stammering
child learns, and are the last signs OF
the dying. The traveller maRmurs
them upon his journey, the herdsman
bv his flock, the wife in her daily
work, the monk in all stages OF con-
templation-that is to say, of Nihilism;
and they are the cries of conflict and tri-
umph. One meets with them everywhere
wherever the Lama church has estab'
lished itselt-on flags, rocks, trees,
walls, stone monuments, utensils, strips
of paper, human skulls, skeletons, etc.
They are, according to the meaning Of
the believer, the essence of all religion,
of all wisdom and revelation; they are
the way of salvation and the entrance
to holiness"
Mr.. Wilson observes that the repeti'
ton of this prayer, whether orally Oh
by mechanical means, has become
sacred and protecting symbol, such al
making the sign of the Cross is among
Roman Catholic Christians. To the
ordinary Thibetan it is known in thi'
sense, and also a prayer for the we'll
being of six classes Of creatures-hu
man beings, animals, evil spirits, souls
in Heaven, souls in purgatory and souls
in hell. $50 it comes to be an aspira
ton of universal benevolence, which i
supposed to have a protecting influence
on those who give ~uttfrance to it, o.
reproduce it in any wqilt" 1t has als'
received many mysticaeirenderings b.
Lama theologians; butthis is the gen
eral meaning attached to it by the PEG
le.-St. James Gazette.