1892.] 
L. A. Waddell— On the site of Buddha s death. 
33 
The laity, through want of knowledge, seldom use with their rosaries 
other than the well known Lamaic formula i Om! ma-ni pe-me hung', 
L e., ‘Hail! to the Jewel in the lotus! Hung.’ This refers to the 
Bodhisatwa Cheresi (Skt. Padma-pani ), the patron-god of Tibet, who, 
like Buddha, is usually represented as seated or standing within a lotus- 
flower, and who is believed to have been born from such a flower. This 
formula is of comparatively modern origin, first appearing in the 
legendary history (&lcah bum) of king Srong-tsan-gam-bo, which was 
one of the so-called ‘ hidden ’ treatises, and probably written about the 
twelfth or fourteenth century A. D. or later. With this formula, which 
is peculiar to Tibet, may be compared the Chinese and Japanese spells 
‘ Ndmo Butsu ' (= Skt. Namo Buddhaya, i. e., Salutation to Buddha !) 
and Ndmo O-mi-to Fu ( = Skt. Namo Amitabhaya, i. e., Salutation to 
The Boundless Light,-the fictitious Buddha of the Western Paradise.) 
The Burmese, so far as I have seen, seem to use their rosary merely for 
repeating the names of the Buddha Trinity viz., 1 Phra ’ or Buddha, 
‘Tara’ or Dharma and Sangha. And the number of beads in their 
rosary is a multiple of 3 X 3 as with the Lamas. On completing the 
cycle the central bead is fingered with the pessimistic formula ‘ Anitsa, 
Dukha, Anatha.’ 
In conclusion may be noted the frequent use of the terms ‘ Rin- 
chhen theng-wa ’ and ‘ Norbu theng-waf i. e., ‘ the Precious Rosary ’ 
and ‘ the Jewelled Rosary ’ as the titles of anthological books contain¬ 
ing choice extracts, especially from sacred literature. 
The ‘ Tsam-chho-dung ’ (rtsa-mchhog-grong*) of the Lamas, and their 
very erroneous identification of the site of Buddha's death.—By L. A. 
Waddell, M. B. 
In conversations some years ago with Lamas and lay Buddhists at 
Darjiling, I was surprised to hear that Asam contained a most holy 
place of Buddhist pilgrimage called ‘ Tsam-cliho-dung ,’ which, it was 
alleged, next to the great temple of Dorje-denf (Sanskrit Vajrdsana ) at 
Bodh Gaya, was the most holy spot a Buddhist could visit. Asam is 
usually regarded as being far beyond the limits of the Buddhist Holy 
Land,-and the Chinese pilgrims Pa Hian and Hiuen Tsiang in the fifth 
and seventh centuries of our era, to whom we are mainly indebted for our 
knowledge of ancient Buddhist geography, not only do not mention any 
* II 
t Vl'GSV rdo-rje-^dan. 
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