282 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 



ОМ MANE PADME HUM ! 

 P. 76. 



The following passages on this mystic formula are 

 partly from Koeppen's Lamaismiis (p. 5 9-60), and partly 

 from an excellent article on Tibet in the ' Calcutta Review/ 

 by Mr. Wilfrid Heeley, of the Bengal Civil Service, in 

 which some paragraphs of Koeppen are condensed : 



' Om mane padme hum ! — the primeval six syllables, as 

 the Lamas say, among all prayers on earth form that 

 which is most abundantly recited, written, printed, and 

 even spun by machines, for the good of the Faithful. These 

 syllables form the only prayer known to the ordinary 

 Tibetans and Mongols ; they are the first words that the 

 child learns to stammer, and the last gasping utterance of 

 the dying. The wanderer murmurs them on his way, the 

 herdsman beside his cattle, the matron at her household 

 tasks, the monk in all the stages of contemplation (i.e. of 

 far nientc) ; they form at once a cry of battle and a shout 

 of victory ! They are to be read wherever the Lama 

 Church hath spread, upon banners, upon rocks, upon trees, 

 upon walls, upon monuments of stone, upon household 

 utensils, upon strips of paper, upon human skulls and 

 skeletons ! They form, according to the idea of the be- 

 lievers, the utmost conception of all religion, of all wisdom, 

 of all revelation, the path of rescue and the gate of sal- 

 vation ! . . . 



* Properly and literally these four words, a single utter- 

 ance of which is sufficient of itself to purchase an inestim- 

 able salvation, signify nothing more than : " О the Jewel in 

 the Lotus ! Amen !" In this interpretation, most probably, 

 the Jewel stands for the Bodhisatva Avalokite^vara, so 

 often born from the bud of a lotus flower. According to 

 this the whole formula is simply a salutation to the mighty 

 saint who has taken under his especial charge the conver- 

 sion of the North, and with him who fir.st employed it the 

 mystic formula meant no плохо. \hz.\\ Ave Avalokite(^vara ! 



