THE WHEEL AS A RELIGIOUS SYMBOL.*
THE main title of this work, The Buddhist Praying Wheel, does not convey a full idea of its scope, the praying wheel of Thibet being quite a subsidiary matter, which is indeed only doubtfully fitted into the twofold theory running through the rest of the book. That theory is, that in very many nations a wheel is used as a religious symbol, and that this symbol originally stood for the sun ; and further, that the symbol is in many cases seen not as an actual wheel, but as a wheeling motion or circular movement, and that in such cases there is always a right direction and a wrong direction for the revola- tion,—the right, or auspicious direction, being generally the same as the apparent daily course of the sun round the earth, namely, with the right hand to the centre; the contrary direction, anti-sunwise, being regarded as inauspicious. The different religious circular symbols and rotatory rites are thus made parts of the great solar myth. Even if that be admitted, it is not clear that the two things are closely related to each other, though both may be derived from a common ancestor, the ann. In most cases the wheel symbol is a vertical object whose motion, if it has any, cannot be regarded as either sunwise or anti-sunwise.
It is true that in the case of the Thibetan praying wheel we have a horizontal wheel, and Mr. Simpson has observed that the Buddhists of Thibet always turn it sunwise, the same direction in which they always go round sacred buildings. But this particular wheel, which is peculiar to Lamaism, seems more likely to have been derived from something existing in Thibet in pre-Buddhist times, than from the curious Brahman ceremony of turning a wheel on a post ; although the sun- wise direction, in which the praying wheel is turned, may perhaps have come from India, and not from the primitive Thibetans, whose modern representatives, the Bonpas, unlike the Buddhists, are said to use the anti-sunwise direction in circumambulating holy places. Again, the solar origin of the wheel symbol in Indian Buddhism hardly seems to be established by Mr. Simpson's admittedly speculative suggestions. It may just as well have represented the earth as the sun. A cart-wheel lying on its hub is a favourite image for the earth in the Introduction to the Jataka (see Mr. H. C. Warren's Buddhism in Translations, pp. 65, 75, 80, 82).
As regards the other side of the subject, we have no space to mention the numerous curious and interesting instances of religions ceremonies connected with going round an object, which have been found to exist in almost every country of Europe and Asia, from Japan to Scotland, from the earliest times to the present day. The custom of handing round the wine "rightwards" is mentioned by Homer in two passages quoted by Mr. Simpson, to which we may add that Plato also refers to it in the Symposium. The word ii;ra or lybieas is supposed by Mr. Simpson to mean in these passages anti-sunwise, but we see no reason for this sup- position, since the cup-bearer, who probably did not stand behind but in front of the guests, would in carrying the cup from his left to his right bear it sunwise. Anyhow, the Sanscrit word praclakshina and the Gaelic deasil, which are both etymologically connected with ikbiEleg, and signify a right- wards movement, are shown by Mr. Simpson to mean going round sunwise.
The ceremony of going round the funeral altar or pyre, generally three times, is referred to as having been practised by Brahmans, Buddhists, and Greeks, and we may add that it was also in use among the Romans (Tacitus, Ann. II. 7), and among the Carthaginians and other races in Hannibal's army (Livy, XXV. 17). It is not clear that in all these cases the circumambulation was made in the same direction, but, according to the Satapatha• Brahmana, the worshipper in honouring the dead first goes round three times contrary to the course of the sun, and then goes round three times sunwise. "The reason why he again moves round from left to right [i.e., sunwise] is that while the first time he went away from here after those three ancestors of his, he now comes back again from them to this, his own world ; that is why he again moves thrice round from left to right." Mr. Simpson ought to notice, in any future edition of his book, that a similar going round at a funeral first one way and then the other is described by Statius • 7'he Buddhist Praying Wheel: a Collection of Material bearing upon the Symb,lism of ti.. Wheel and Circular Movements in Custom and Religious Ritual- Br William Sinn:01101U London Macmillan and Co.
(Theb. VI. 213 seq.), who seems to imply a very similar reason for the ceremony,—namely, that the going round sinistro orbe (anti-sunwise) was somehow connected with re- verence for the dead, and that the subsequent going round deztri gyro (sunwise) was in order to get rid of the taint of mourning, or, as it were, the contagion of death (luctus abolere novique funeris auspicium).
Generally, it appears that the right, the auspicious way of going round among all Aryan nations, including Indians Greeks, Romans, and Celts, was sunwise; but amongst Semite races the right motion was in some cases, at any rate, the opposite way. The author describes a dance of whirling Dervishes which he saw at Cairo. This begins with a slow march round a circle three times, with the left hand to the centre, and afterwards the Dervishes whirl round themselves swiftly like a spinning top. Mr. Simpson omitted at the time to notice which way they whirled, but he says, "Dr, Budge, of the British Museum, has seen the Dervishes lately, and he assures me that the whirling was done with the right hand to the centre." Unfortunately another observer of these Dervish dances, Major Conder (Heth and Moab), says that the whirling was the opposite way, "against the sun." When Major Conder saw the rite performed, there were seven dancers going round an eighth, who was dressed in green, and he fancifully adds : "We could not doubt that the ancient dance we witnessed was that of the Cabin, the seven great ones, or planetary gods, revolving round the green centre of the terrestrial globe." Can it be that the motion with left band to the centre was derived from the apparent motion of the planets in their orbits, which is in the main, of course, in the opposite direction to the apparent daily motion of the sun P Mr. Simpson makes no pretension to his collection of material on this subject being exhaustive. He professes only to have set down what he has come across in the course of desultory reading, and it is rather strange that he says he has nothing to tell about religious circular movements among the Romans. Besides the references which we have given above, he might have discovered other curious Roman customs of this sort by looking up the word metro in any good Latin dictionary, and the article on armies fratres in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. The book needs some revision, as the author has an awkward habit of making statements in the earlier chapters which he finds it necessary in later chapters to correct. But despite these faults of omission and commission, Mr. Simpson has produced a very interesting and suggestive work in a field of inquiry which we agree with him in thinking deserves to be further explored.
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