What a Prayer Wheel Is
A prayer wheel goes by several names — the mani wheel, the mani cylinder — and it has come to stand as one of the standing images of Asia. At its centre is a single idea: the turning of a cycle. For Tibetan Buddhists it is a sacred object, and it is made at two scales. The large ones are set in rows around a monastery, where anyone passing may set them spinning. The small ones stay with a person for life, carried in the hand.
Walk onto Tibetan ground and they are everywhere — at the roadside, in a temple courtyard, in the hands of people in bright robes. A right hand rests on the cylinder and turns it gently clockwise. On a major festival day, people travel in from far away and gather in one place, and the wheels turn in every hand at once. In the sun, the spinning metal throws off light in every direction.
So a prayer wheel is one of two things: a wheel held in the hand, or a wheel fixed to a frame in a monastery.
The Hand-Held Wheel
The small one is also called a hand mani wheel. It is made of gold, silver, or copper, and comes in large, medium, and small sizes. The body is a cylinder with an axle through the middle so that it can spin. The six-syllable mantra is engraved around the outside of the cylinder, and printed mantras are placed inside it as well.
The making is usually fine work. The text and the animal and bird figures carved into the surface carry their own meaning, and they are also picked out in painted colour, so the object reads as a crafted thing as much as a religious one. Most hand-held wheels are wood. The light ones carried by older people are often bone or metal and made with more care. Some have coral or gemstones set into the surface, which adds a value to the wheel beside its religious one.
A small hole is cut beside the cylinder, and a little weight hangs from it on a cord. Turn the handle below the cylinder and the weight swings out with it, its momentum speeding the wheel and tracing a circle in the air. The person turning it holds that the faster the wheel spins, the faster their merit gathers.
The Wheels That Stand in the Monastery
The large fixed wheels are gathered around monasteries, in walkways built for turning them. People move along the row clockwise, setting each wheel with the right hand while the six syllables — Om Mani Padme Hum — are murmured under the breath. These wheels have stood through years of weather, and they carry the devotion of the generations who have passed along the same row.
Beyond them are the wheels too large to turn by hand at all. These run several metres high and two metres across, wide enough to hold the whole of the Tibetan canon, and moving one takes a group of people working together.
At the top of a hill in Shangri-La stands the largest prayer wheel in the world. It is 21 metres tall, weighs 60 tons, and its body is gilded copper. Carved in high relief on its walls are Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Avalokiteshvara, and Ksitigarbha — four great bodhisattvas. Below them run the eight Buddhist treasures: the conch, the wheel, the parasol, the banner, the lotus, the vase, the fish and the endless knot. Inside are mantras and relics — 1.24 million copies of the six-syllable mantra, and 16 tons of sacred objects. A visitor takes hold of the great ring and pushes or pulls it clockwise. It takes six strong men to move it, and a single turn is held to be worth 1.24 million recitations of the mantra.
Why the Bigger Wheel Counts for More
A small wheel is quicker and easier to carry. Tibetan Buddhists still hold that a large wheel earns more merit than a small one. The reason is both inside and on the surface. A large wheel carries more mantra carved onto it and more stacked within it, and one turn traces a far longer path. A single turn of a large wheel is therefore held to accumulate far more merit than a single turn of a small one.
How to Turn One
Turning a wheel has its own etiquette. Travel to a Tibetan region and it is worth knowing before you pick one up — it is a matter of respect owed to the belief, as much as custom.
The grip. Hold a hand-held wheel with the thumb lying flat, wrapped in with the other four fingers around the handle. The thumb must never point up along the handle. Turning a wheel that way, the tradition holds, is like pointing a foot at a buddha.
The pace. Turn it slowly and steadily. A rushed, quick spin is not the aim; a hurried hand is read as a sign of a heavy temper.
The direction. Never turn it anticlockwise. A clockwise turn is one recitation; a turn the other way sets the recitation back. The wheel goes only one way.
The resting place. Buddhism puts little weight on objects and much on the mind. A prayer wheel is still a sacred object of Tibetan Buddhism, and if you bring one home as a souvenir, keep it somewhere quiet.
What Each Number of Turns Is Held to Earn
Tibetans hold that turning the wheel is the same as reciting — the best way to repent the past, to turn aside misfortune, and to gather merit. The number of turns, and who is turning, change what the turning is understood to mean.
- One turn equals one reading of the Kangyur.
- Two turns equal a reading of all the Buddhist sutras.
- Three turns clear the faults of body, speech, and mind.
- Ten turns clear faults as heavy as Mount Sumeru.
- A hundred turns equal the merit of Yama.
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A thousand turns let the turner and others alike attain the dharma body.
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Ten thousand turns free all beings, the turner among them.
- A hundred thousand turns carry the turner to the assembly of Avalokiteshvara.
- A million turns bring ease to every being in the six realms.
- Ten million turns lift all beings in the six realms out of suffering.
- A hundred million turns equal the merit of Avalokiteshvara.
What the Turning Is Held to Earn, by Who Turns It
The merit is also told by the person doing the turning.
- On a hilltop: the whole surrounding country comes into good fortune.
- A yogi: their own aims and the aims of others are accomplished.
- A strict practitioner: the karma of broken vows is cleared.
- A tantric master: obstacles fall away, and the deity is met face to face.
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A doctor: plague ends in the place they live.
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A king: subjects and household are cleared of karma.
- Soldiers and officers: obstacles are cleared, and merit grows.
- A queen: resources become complete, and the realm prospers.
- An officer: the ranks and their families are cleared of karma.
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The ranks themselves: their lives are protected.
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A merchant: business prospers, and wishes come true.
- An ordinary man: a good human rebirth.
- A poor woman: a pure male body in the next life.
- A poor man: karma cleared, and poverty turned to wealth.
Tibetans are a deeply religious people, and many of them place their hopes for a good life, and for the life to come, in the cylinder that keeps turning. Through birth and death, through the murmured six syllables, under the hands of believers whose fingers carry the smell of butter, the wheel has gone round and round for centuries — carrying, in its turning, the conversation between the Buddha and the people of Tibet.
Where to Go From Here
Two more objects belong to the same family. The ghau box is a small shrine worn against the chest, made to be carried rather than displayed. Om Mani Padme Hum is the six syllables the wheel holds inside it, worn as a piece of their own. Tibetan jewelry is where the whole range sits together.