Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/361

 Rh everything for us, and who are the owners of our souls and lives, keep us safe with you."

The mantra or formula appropriate to the contained prayers must be repeated before a wheel is turned, and also at the end of the rotation, or else no merit will be gained. The mantra should also be repeated as often as possible while the turning is going on, and the faster the turning the greater the merit. It is also necessary that the wheel shall be turned only in the direction in which a person would go keeping his right side always to the axle. To turn in the reverse direction is to undo all that has been previously done by a right turning.

The smaller prayer-wheel, mounted on a long wooden handle and seen to the left of the Plate, is for hand use, and is kept in motion with very little effort by the help of the chain and weight. A hook and chain are also provided for the suspension of the wheel, which contains the usual formula, and has embossed on it the "eight glorious emblems" found in Buddha's footprints, viz. the golden fish, umbrella, conch-shell trumpet of victory, lucky diagram, victorious banner, vase, lotus, and wheel.

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(Exhibited at Meeting of Society. See Plate VII. and p. 243.)

object to the right of Plate VII. is a drum made of the caps of two human skulls secured together at their apices, and with their bases covered by human skin. The drum is beaten by jerking it from one side to the other by the supporting band, so that the two hanging leather bobs strike the skin coverings.

The other object shown is a kaṅ-liṅ, or trumpet made of a human thigh-bone, the lower part of which is covered wnth human skin. Such a trumpet "is sometimes encased in brass, with a wide copper flanged extremity, on which are figured the three eyes and nose of a demon, the oval open extremity being the demon's mouth. In the preparation of these thigh-bone trumpets the bones of criminals or those who have died by violence are preferred, and an elaborate incantation is done, part of which consists in the Lāma eating a portion of the skin of the bone; otherwise its blast would not be sufficiently powerful to summon