190 L. A. Waddell — Burmese Buddhist "Rosaries. [Dec. 



" time in counting the number of times of decay and of the breaking 

 " up of all nature." The occurrence here of the word ' counting ' is held 

 to justify the use of the rosary. 



The rosary is known by its Burmese name of Tsi-puthi QUO OOS 



T which literally means ' the mind garland,' i. e., 



the meditation -rosary, and the exercise of 



telling the beads is believed to facilitate the abstraction of the mind 



from worldly matters and its concentration on the topics enunciated. 



Like the lamaist rosary it consists of 108 beads, corresponding, it 



The number of * s a ^ e o e( ^5 to the 108 symbols on Buddha's 



beads. sole or foot-prints. 



Its general form is the same as that of the Bo-dhi-tse rosary of the 



„ , „ gelukpa Lamas, except in the absence of the 



General form. . . * „. 



strings of ' counters ' of the latter. The cen- 

 tral bead, through which the two ends of the rosary string are passed, 

 is extra to the 108, and it is surmounted, as in the gelukpa rosary, by 

 two or more beads, spherical and discoid in shape, to form a vase. 



The material of which the beads are made varies according to the 

 taste and means of the owner, or in the case 



be^ds 61 '^ 18 ° f thG of the monks > tlie donor > o£ tllc rosary. The 

 most common rosary consists of beads made 

 from cocoa-nut shell, darkened by steeping in oil, and turned on a lathe 

 into ovoid, spherical or discoid beads. Beads are also turned from the 

 black heart wood of a certain tree, from the bones and tusks of ele- 

 phants, the horn of the bison, &c. The rosaries of varnished pellets, 

 noted in my previous paper, 1 are also not uncommon. Light and tiny 

 l'osaries of amber, &c, are mostly used by ladies. A most rare and 

 costly rosary found occasionally amongst the wealthy lay devotees is 

 formed of compressed sweet scented flowers, pressed into cakes of a 

 wood-like hardness and then turned on a lathe into beads. Such beads 

 retain their perfume, it is said, for ages. This is the nearest approach 

 to the more primitive rosary viz., a garland of flowers. 



The rosary formula in most common use amongst the Burmese 



Buddhists is, as previously noted by me, (he 

 Tho formulae for ,, . . ,. m . ., , . „ . 



the beads. pessimistic Vnvidya: Anitya, Dukha, An- 



atma — ' All is transitory, painful ami unreal!* 



After this, the next most common use to which the rosary is pul is to 



tell off the attributes of Buddha, and less frequently the attributes of 



The Three Holy Ones. 



1 The number in that case should also have boon given as 108, tho particular 

 rosary seen by me at that time having been broken and incomplete. 



