About Prayer Wheel - Incense Holder :
Prayer wheels, called Chokhor in Tibetan, are very common religious objects in Tibet and in Tibeten Buddhism. A hand held prayer wheel is a hollow wooden or metal cylinder attached to a handle. Om Mani Padme Hum mantras or Eight Auspicious sumbols are printed,caraved or etched in relief on the cylinder. Attached to the cylinder is a lead weight with a chain or round metal hung with the leather strips or belt, which facilitates the rotation. Tibetans use prayer wheels to spread spiritual blessings to all sentient beings and invoke good karma in their next life. They believe that every rotation of a prayer wheel equals one utterance of the mantra, thus the religious practice will in return help them accumulate merits, replace negative effects with positive ones, and hence bring them good karma. The religious exercise is part of Tibetan life. People turn the wheel day and night while walking or resting, whenever their right hands are free while murmuring the same mantra. Buddhists turn the wheel clockwise. Bon followers turn the wheel counter clockwise. Prayer wheels vary in size and type. Not all prayer wheels are hand held. It is common for bucket-sized prayer wheels to be lined up on wooden racks along walking paths circling monasteries and other sacred sites, for the benefit of visiting pilgrims. Larger water, fire, and wind prayer wheels are built so that they are empowered by the flowing water, the flaming light, and the blowing wind which drive them, and can later pass their positive karma to all who touch them. Turning a prayer wheel (tib- chokhor) containing 100 million mantras is believed to accumulate the same merit as having recited aloud, 100 million mantras of OM MANI PADME HUMs. Just touching and turning a prayer wheel brings incredible purification and accumulates unbelievable merit. One of the benefits of the prayer wheel is that it embodies all the actions of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the 10 directions. To benefit sentient beings, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifest in the prayer wheel to purify all our negative karmas and obscurations, and to cause us to actualize the realizations of the path to enlightenment. Mani wheels are found all over Tibet and in areas influenced by Tibetan culture. There are many types of Mani wheels, but small hand-held wheels, like the one shown here, are the most common by far. Tibetan people carry them around for hours, and even on long pilgrimages, spinning them any time they have a hand free. Larger wheels, which may be several yards (meters) high and one or two yards (meters) in diameter, can contain myriad copies of the mantra, and may also contain sacred texts, up to hundreds of volumes.