DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.649#0149
PRAYERS. 121
sentence printed in six lines and repeated innumerable
times upon a leaf 49 feet long and 4 inches broad.
When Baron Schilling de Canstadt paid a visit to the
temple Subulin in Siberia, the Lamas were just occupied
with preparing 100 millions of copies of this prayer
to be put into a prayer cylinder. His offer to have
the necessary number executed at St. Petersburg was most
readily accepted, and he was presented, in return for the
150 millions of copies he forwarded to them, with an
edition of the Kanjur, the sheets of which amount to
about 40,000.—When adorning the head of religious
books, or when engraved upon the slabs resting on
the prayer walls,1 the letters of the above-mentioned
sentence are often so combined as to form an anagram.
The longitudinal lines occurring in the letters "mani
padme hum" are traced close to each other, and to
the outer longitudinal line at the left are appended the
curved lines. The letter "om" is replaced by a sym-
bolical sign above the anagram, showing a half-moon
surmounted by a disk indicating the sun, from which issues
a flame. Such a combination of the letters is called in
Tibetan Nam chu vangdan, "the ten entirely powerful
(viz. characters, six of which are consonants, and four
vowels);" and the power of this sacred sentence is supposed
to be increased by its being written in this form. This
kind of anagrams are always bordered by a pointed
frame indicating the leaf of a fig-tree.
1 See about them Chapter XIII.
sentence printed in six lines and repeated innumerable
times upon a leaf 49 feet long and 4 inches broad.
When Baron Schilling de Canstadt paid a visit to the
temple Subulin in Siberia, the Lamas were just occupied
with preparing 100 millions of copies of this prayer
to be put into a prayer cylinder. His offer to have
the necessary number executed at St. Petersburg was most
readily accepted, and he was presented, in return for the
150 millions of copies he forwarded to them, with an
edition of the Kanjur, the sheets of which amount to
about 40,000.—When adorning the head of religious
books, or when engraved upon the slabs resting on
the prayer walls,1 the letters of the above-mentioned
sentence are often so combined as to form an anagram.
The longitudinal lines occurring in the letters "mani
padme hum" are traced close to each other, and to
the outer longitudinal line at the left are appended the
curved lines. The letter "om" is replaced by a sym-
bolical sign above the anagram, showing a half-moon
surmounted by a disk indicating the sun, from which issues
a flame. Such a combination of the letters is called in
Tibetan Nam chu vangdan, "the ten entirely powerful
(viz. characters, six of which are consonants, and four
vowels);" and the power of this sacred sentence is supposed
to be increased by its being written in this form. This
kind of anagrams are always bordered by a pointed
frame indicating the leaf of a fig-tree.
1 See about them Chapter XIII.