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MODERN BUDDHISM.
times the "jewel" formula, which has acquired such vogue among them, but they get it repeated by turning machines or extending flags to the wind, in or on which the sacred formula is written. This formula consists merely of the sentence, "Om mani padme Hum." The first syllable is the Hindu sacred syllable; the next two words mean, "the Jewel in the Lotus," an allusion, it is said, to Avalo-kitesvara as the patron of Tibet appearing from or seated on a Lotus. The last syllable is regarded by some as an Amen. The whole formula is thought by Sir Monier-Williams to have some relation to Hindu Siva-worship, and, he says, "no other prayer used by human beings in any quarter of the globe is repeated so often. Every Tibetan believes it to be a panacea for all evil, a compendium of all knowledge, a treasury of all wisdom, a summary of all religion." Each of its syllables is believed to influence one of the six courses or stages of transmigration through which all must pass, diminishing his stay in them, or in time abolishing it altogether.
The favourite prayer cylinders are of metal, having the mystic invocation engraved on the outside, while the cavity is filled with paper in rolls, on which it is written
Prayer as many times as possible. This cylinder can cylinders. be made to revolve on a handle, and is whirled in the hand, or rotated by a chain or string. "All day long," says Capt. Gill in "The River of Golden Sand," "not only the Lamas, but the people may be seen muttering the universal prayer, and twisting their cylinders, invariably in the same direction with the hands of a clock. One or more great cylinders, inscribed with this sentence, stand at the entrance to every house in Tibet; and a member of the household or a guest who passes is always expected to give the cylinder a twist for the welfare of the establishment. At almost every rivulet the eye is arrested by a little building that is at first mistaken for a water mill, but which on close inspection is found to contain a cylinder, turning by the force of the stream, and ceaselessly sending up pious ejaculations to heaven; for every turn of a cylinder on which the prayer
