AN EXPLORATION OF EASTERN BHUTAN
decay, and only a few still in working order. For the benefit of my readers who are unacquainted with this practice, the following is a short description. A prayer-wheel consists of a hollow cylinder filled with written or printed prayers, and fixed to a perpendicular shaft of wood, to the lower end of which horizontal flappers are attached, against which water is directed from a shoot; the end is shod with iron, and revolves in an iron socket driven by the force of the stream. With each revolution the prayers are believed to be prayed for the benefit of the builder of that particular wheel, and count so much to his credit. They are very easily kept in order, but probably because only construction, and not preservation, is a work of merit in the Buddhist religion, no one seems to take the trouble to clear out the watercourses or to mend a broken flapper, and consequently most of them were at a standstill. It is a delightfully easy method of praying, and some enormous wheels have been erected. One at Lamteng, in the Lachen Valley, in Sikhim, contains no less than four tons of printed paper, and measures about 9 feet in height by 4½ feet in diameter; but these very large ones are seldom worked by water-power, and generally have a crank on the lever end of the shaft, which any one anxious to pray has only to turn, while a bell sounding automatically at each revolution records the number of prayers repeated. Every monastery throughout Sikhim has a row of prayer-wheels at the entrance to the temple, and as every true Buddhist passes he twirls each cylinder in turn with the ejaculation, “Om mani padmi hum.”
The road along which we were travelling had evidently at one time been well made and properly aligned, although it had been allowed to go out of repair. It must have been cut to four or five feet in width, and well graded also, but though all agreed that it had been made a very long time ago, no one could tell me when. My own opinion is that it was probably built by one of the old Rajas who once reigned in these valleys, and of whom some historical
