O'M MANE PADMA HAUN is a prayer used by the Mongol, the Tartar, and the Tibetan Buddhists. It is commonly translated by the words,—Oh the jewel in the lotus ; but the literal translation is given in the words,— O'm, I M I Diane, I Padma, Haun, God. jewel. lotus, that is so. This invocation is quite unknown to the Buddhists of Ceylon or the Eastern Peninsula, and forms the peculiar feature of Tibetan Buddhism. M. Klaproth translates from Mongolian into French a legend that the savage Empire of Snow (Tibet) had for ages been lying beyond the pale of law and religion,—rempli d'une foule d'etres malfaisans, —when, by an intellectual creative act of the great Sakya Muni (Buddha), a certain divinity named Padma-pani was called into being from the flower of the lotus, who succcessfully under took the work of conversion. The notion is, there fore, that the mystic words are commemorative of this great act of Sakya Muni, and of the incarna tion of the divine Tibetan apostle. It is an invoca tion of Sakya, who is usually represented holding a lotus flower with a jewel iu it. At Tumlong, in an oratory, the lotus, the mane, and the ehirki (or wheel) with three rays, emblematic of the Buddhist Trinity, are everywhere introduced. O'rn mane padma haun ' in gilt letters adorn the project ing end of every beam ; and the Chinese cloud messenger, or winged dragon, floats in azure and gold along the capitals and beams, amongst scrolls and groups of flowers. At one end is a sitting figure of Gorakhnath in Lama robes, surrounded by a glory, with mitre and beads. A mythical
animal with a dog's head and blood-red spot over the forehead is not uncommon in this chapel, and is also seen in the Sikkim temples and through out Tibet. Ermatm, in his Siberian Travels, mentions it as occurring in the Khampa Lama's temple at Maimaochin ; he conjectures it to have been the Cyclops of the Greeks, which, according to the Homeric myth, had a mark on the fore head, instead of an eye. Captain Knight, in the monastery of Hemis, found about a hundred praying wheels,—little wooden drums covered with leather, fitting into niches in the wall, and moved at the slightest push by a spindle running through the centre ; and as the scrolls inside them are covered with the mystic sentence, O'm mane padma limn,' and contain nothing else, it was calculated that the invocation must occur not less than 1,700,000 times. These sacred words are not only found in the praying wheels, but long mounds of votive stones, similarly inscribed, are scattered far and wide over the face of the country. This habit of promulgating the doctrines of their faith by inscriptions patent on the face of religious edifices, stones, etc., is peculiar to the Buddhists of Tibet. Their constant repetition is also, as M. Hue has explained, extremely meritorious, and capable of securing immediate absorption after death into the universal soul of Buddha.