Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A revolving apparatus used for prayer.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • An hour later two elderly lamas in soiled yellow robes and horn-rimmed spectacles, followed by a lame coolie carrying their scanty possessions, emerged, rosary and praying-wheel in hand, from the forest into the cultivated country.

    The Jungle Girl Gordon Casserly

  • He was taught the Buddhist chants and how to drone them, how to carry his praying-wheel and finger a rosary to the murmured "_Om mani padmi hung_" of the Tibetans, and -- for he was something of an artist -- how to paint the Buddhist pictorial Wheel of

    The Jungle Girl Gordon Casserly

  • In Japan the praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a mill.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 08, June 1858 Various

  • It is a mechanical exercise like the Tibetan's turning of a praying-wheel.

    The Summing Up Maugham, W Somerset 1938

  • The purely mechanical repetition of prayers was held to be a virtuous act, and this idea was carried to the most absurd length in the Buddhist's praying-wheel, where merit was acquired by causing the wheel with prayers inscribed on its surface to revolve in a waterfall.

    The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) Robert Vane Russell 1894

  • At this entrance were, one on either side, recesses in which, by the side of a big drum, squatted two Lamas with books of prayers before them, a praying-wheel and a rosary in their hands, the beads of which they shifted after every prayer.

    An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet Arnold Henry Savage Landor 1894

  • At this entrance were, one on either side, recesses in which, by the side of a big drum, squatted two Lamas with books of prayers before them, a praying-wheel and a rosary in their hands, the beads of which they shifted after every prayer.

    In the Forbidden Land Arnold Henry Savage Landor 1894

  • Shifting the beads of a rosary, revolving the praying-wheel, and muttering prayers, the medicine-man now worked himself into a perfect frenzy.

    In the Forbidden Land Arnold Henry Savage Landor 1894

  • "This is a praying-wheel!" she cried, in quite a delighted voice.

    Hilda Wade, a Woman with Tenacity of Purpose Grant Allen 1873

Comments

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  • "In Japan the praying-wheel is turned by hand; but in China, according to Hue, it is sometimes carried by water-power, and rises to the dignity of a mill."

    -The Atlantic Monthy, June 1858.

    May 5, 2016