An intricate arrangement of huge wheels and other wheels within wheels, like the works of a clock, is connected with rows of cylinders and made to revolve rapidly by means of heavy weights. An infinite number of prayers are repeated in this manner by a single monk, who takes a minute or two to wind up the complicated spiritual machinery, and then hastens to help his brothers in industrial occupations—the whole fraternity feeling that the ingenious contrivance of praying by clock-work enables them to promote the common weal by making the most of both worlds. The story goes that, in times of special need and emergency, additional weights are attached to the machinery, and, of course, increased cogency given to the rotatory prayers. It is to be hoped that when European inventions find their way across the Himālayas, steam-power may not be pressed into the service of these gross superstitions. The use of prayer-wheels of various kinds is also common in Japan, as described in Sir Edward Reed’s work. But praying by machinery is not all. Beneficial results are believed to accrue through the carving of the all-powerful six syllables on every conceivable object. The traveller, as he walks along, sees the mystic words impressed on the stones at his feet, on rocks, doors, monuments, and trees. Indeed, rich and zealous Buddhists maintain at their own expense, companies of Lāmas for the sole object of propagating the Maṇi-padme formula. These strange missionaries may occasionally be encountered, chisel and hammer in hand, traversing field, hill, dale, and desert, their only mission being to engrave the sacred six syllables on every rock in their path (Huc, ii. 194). Absolutely incalculable is the grand total of Maṇi-padmes thus placed to the credit of the world of living beings during the short space of twenty-four hours. Yet, at the end of the New Year’s festival in Tibet, the chief Lāma will sometimes pretend to proclaim the exact sum of mystic syllables supposed to have been repeated during its continuance, amounting perhaps to billions upon billions, for the consolation of all those faithful Buddhists who, oppressed by the evils of life, are seeking for some antidote. But the ‘jewel-lotus’ is not the only antidote. There are other short prayer-formularies, such as Om Vajra-pāṇi-Hūm (addressed to the Bodhi-sattva Vajra-pāṇi, p. 201), and other still more mystical ejaculations (such as Om ah Hūm); and magical sentences, called Dhāranī, and profoundly significant monosyllables, such as Ram, Phaṭ, Hṛim, Hṛīm, Ṛim, Ṛīm, Hṛīs. And here in connexion with the ubiquity of prayer-formularies, we must not omit to notice the _Praying-walls_, that is, the long stone walls or banks called (from the ‘jewel-lotus’ prayer inscribed upon them) _Maṇi_[178], or in the provincial dialect Man Dang (variously Man-dong, Mendong).