TIBET

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Praying with ease

Hand held prayer wheel, Tibet.

Traditionally the wheel was excluded from Tibet except for religious purposes. Prayer wheels are used to expedite the practitioners level of religious attainment. Each contains scrolls of paper on which prayers are printed in Tibetan script.
In the case of a small hand-held wheel like this one the scroll is about about 20m in length. Lay people or monks and nuns will walk about spinning their wheel in a clockwise direction, thus attracting merit for all those prayers which have been 'said'.
Large wheels several metres high and one or two metres in diameter are often located within monasteries and may be driven by water power so that merit can be dispensed continuously. These larger wheels contain whole volumes of books weighing hundreds of kilogrammes.
Many hand held wheels are embossed with silver. The one pictured is made of copper with a brass strip, a much older style.
This photo was taken near Mt Kailas the owner, a man aged 76 said that the wheel had belonged to his grandfather. Whether it had more ancient origins one can only speculate.

Next month: The green mystic.

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revision 18 Mar 2001
http://www.greenkiwi.co.nz/footprints/photo/ph9901.htm