This prayer, or rather mystical sentence, is supposed to have been composed by Padma-pāṇi (Avalokiteṡvara), and to have reference to his own manifestation as the Patron-Saint of Tibet[173]. It is sometimes called the Maṇi or ‘Jewel’ prayer, and, if brevity is a valuable quality, its excellence is undeniable, since it consists of merely two Sanskṛit words, between two mystical, untranslatable auspicious ejaculations, Om and Hūm[174]. Doubtless the prayer really owes its origin to the close connexion which sprang up between Northern Buddhism and Ṡaivism. The worshippers of Ṡiva have always used (compare p. 240) similar mystical sentences and syllables called Dhāraṇīs, to which a kind of miraculous efficacy is attributed. In all probability an occult meaning underlies the ‘Jewel-lotus’ formula, and my own belief is that the majority of those who repeat it are ignorantly doing homage to the self-generative power supposed to inhere in the universe—a power pointed at by the popular Sāṅkhya theory of the union of Prakṛiti and Purusha, and by the universal worship of the Liṅga and Yoni throughout India[175]. No thoughtful person can have travelled much in India without being impressed with this. At all events, whatever be its origin and meaning, 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. But if you ask Northern Buddhists to give you the reason for this belief, very few are able to give an intelligible reply. According to the most learned doctors of philosophy who are to be found in Tibetan monasteries, it is certainly addressed to their patron deity Avalokiteṡvara, and the real secret of its efficacy lies in the fact, that each one of its six syllables has a potent influence on some one of the six _Gatis_ or courses of being—that is to say, on some one of the six kinds of transmigration or transformation through which every living individual has to pass (see p. 121)[176]. The oftener, therefore, this mystical formula is repeated the shorter will be an individual’s course (gati) through some of these six forms of existence, every one of which involves misery or evil. Or it may be that by repeating it he will be able to escape some of the six existences altogether. Strange indeed as it may appear to us, it is impossible to shake the faith of a Lāmistic Buddhist in the absolutely infallible efficacy of his six favourite mystic syllables. He repeats them, not at all as if he were praying in a Christian sense, but as if he were a farmer intent on planting the very best seed in the most productive soil, and watering it incessantly according to the most scientific principles of irrigation. A bountiful harvest is absolutely certain to reward his efforts.