The Prayer Barrel

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 11.

The Prayer Barrel.

I FIRST met with prayer barrels on the borders of Thibet, when, traveling the narrow paths which wind along the face of majestic, precipitous Himalayan crags, we met native travelers from still further north,—traders driving flocks of laden goats, women with quaint head-dresses of lumps of amber and large, coarse turquoises fastened on bands of dirty cloth, and here and there a man holding in his hand a small bronze or brass cylinder which he twirled mechanically all the time he was journeying. It was some time before I succeeded in getting hold of one of these for a closer examination, as the owners are nervously afraid to trust their treasures in the hands of one who, albeit in ignorance, might irreverently turn them the wrong way, and so undo much of the merit acquired by perpetual twirling in the opposite direction. For, as we eventually discovered, not only is the sacred six-syllabled charm embossed on the metal cylinder, but the same mystic words were written over and over again on very lengthy strips of cloth or papyrus which are bound round the spindle on which the cylinder rotates, and one end of which forms the handle. It is therefore necessary to turn this little barrel of prayers in such a direction that the characters forming the holy phrase may pass in proper order before the person turning, and as Oriental books are read from the right side of each page to the left, the barrel is turned in the same direction. For the same reason the Thibetan walks in this direction round the great terraces and other buildings, on which the holy words are inscribed, in order that his eyes may rest on the words in due course, which can only be the case when he keeps his left hand toward the object round which he is walking. Happily this produces a doubly satisfactory result; for in Eastern lands, as well as in our West, it has ever been accounted lucky and meritorious to walk around sacred objects or places in this sunwise course—an act of homage to the sun which I have seen rendered in many lands. Just as our ancestors continued thus to circumambulate their churches long after they had nominally abandoned all paganism, so throughout the world we find survivals of the old homage.—The Contemporary Review.