158 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



252. Tip of a mendicants staff (hikila, Tibetan, Tchargsil). — Consist- 

 ing of a socketed brass bar with a circular loop on which are strung 

 six jingling rings. It is carried by mendicant monks to drown out 

 by its jingling worldly sounds, and to warn off small animals, lest 

 they be trod upon and killed. Height, 4% inches. Probably Tibet. 

 (Plate 54 (right). Cat. No. 311791, U.S.N.M.) Bequest of Miss Eliz- 

 abeth S. Stevens. 



253. Pilgrim'' s staff. — Wood carved with a figurine of Buddha, seated 

 on a lotus, forming the top, while around the staff is wound a dragon. 

 Used in climbing mountains. China. (Cat. No. 331677, U.S.N.M.) 



Prayer wheels. — The prayer wheel (Tibetan, mam chos Tcor), is a 

 cylinder of metal, or, in the larger wheels, of wood or even leather, 

 through which runs an axis prolonged below to form a handle. 

 Around this axis are rolled, one on top of the other, sheets of paper 

 or leaves of a book inscribed with some formula or spell. The sheets 

 are wound on the axis from right to left, and the wheel when set in 

 motion must revolve in the opposite way, so that the writing passes 

 in front of the person turning the wheel in the way in which it is to 

 be read; that is, from left to right. A piece of metal attached by a 

 small chain to one side of the barrel facilitates the turning of it. 

 Each complete revolution of the wheel counts as one repetition of 

 all the prayers contained in the cylinder. The prayer wheel is used 

 especially by the Buddhists of Tibet, and the most usual invocation 

 inscribed on the rolls in prayer wheels consists of the words: "Om! 

 mani padme! Hum," which is rendered: "Hail, jewel in the lotus." 

 The repetition of this formula is the most common mode of praying 

 met with among the Mongols and Tibetans. It is addressed to 

 Avalokitvsvara (Padmapani), who appeared from out of a lotus for 

 the deliverance of mankind. By the Tibetans he is held in special 

 veneration as the protector and patron of Tibet, and is being incar- 

 nated in the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism. Prayer 

 wheels are placed in the entrance to temples and houses, to be turned 

 by each person passing on gables of houses, or over the hearth, 

 where they are twirled by the wind or smoke. Sometimes a wheel 

 is fixed to the bed of a stream and kept in motion by the current, 

 thus praying night and day for the owner. Besides the small hand 

 prayer wheels, usually measuring from 3 to 5 inches in height and from 

 2 to 3 inches in diameter, there are large machines set up in temples 

 and monasteries, which are sometimes 30 or 40 feet high and 15 or 

 20 feet in diameter. In these are placed a collection of the canonical 

 books of lamaism (ka-gyur, see p. 152), and by means of bars fixed 

 in the lower extremity of the axis of the barrel it is put in motion. 

 It is a materialistic putting into practice of the symbolical phrase 

 "Turning the wheel of the law." 



254. Small stationary prayer wheel. — Bronze. The axis projects 

 above the top, so that it may be put in motion without removing it 



