prayer wheel

This is one of our objects that was commissioned for the new museum and one of my favourite things...

It's a Buddhist prayer wheel... You turn the wheels in a clockwise direction and it releases prayers of compassion to the heavens...

I'd seen these before on the TV, but apart from knowing that they were sacred, I never really knew much about them or how they worked... I'm really drawn to this now and find it really fascinating...

First... it's totally authentic and it was made in scotland... Who knew that there is a Buddhist Monastery in Scotland?

secondly each of the golden wheels, contains sheets of paper rolled into a bundle... each sheet of paper is covered with tiny prayers.

and finally it's the skill and care and craftmanship that went into making it. There's about 23000 prayers on each sheet of paper and there's around 1400 sheets in each wheel. That's a lot of prayers!!

I love the fact that it is now available for people to use and that it's just about bringing happiness, peace and good things to the world.... There's a video about the people that made it and how it was created on the website if your interested...