Prayer wheel
devotional tool in Buddhism
A prayer wheel, or mani wheel, is a cylindrical wheel (Tibetan: འཁོར་ལོ།, Wylie: 'khor lo, Oirat: кюрдэ) for Buddhist recitation. The wheel is installed on a spindle made from metal, wood, stone, leather, or coarse cotton. Prayer wheels are common in Tibet and areas where Tibetan culture is predominant.
Traditionally, a mantra is written in Ranjana script or Tibetan script, on the outside of the wheel. The mantra Om mani padme hum is most commonly used, but other mantras can also be used.
Prayer wheels sometimes depict dakinis and the eight auspicious symbols (ashtamangala). At the core of the cylinder, as the axle of the wheel, is a "life tree" made of wood or metal with mantras written on or wrapped around it.
According to the Tibetan Buddhist and Bon tradition, spinning such a wheel will have much the same meritorious effect as orally reciting the prayers.
Nomenclature and etymology
The Tibetan term is a contraction: "mani" itself is a contraction of Sanskrit cintamani; "chos" is Tibetan for dharma; and "'khor" or "'khorlo" means chakrano.
The common term, "prayer wheel" is a double misnomer.
The public source identifies “Prayer wheel” as devotional tool in Buddhism. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prayer, wheel and devotional.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q80876. The Library of Congress control number is sh87005871. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Prayer wheel” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.