Mantra scroll

Museum number:
9-22067
Permalink:
ark:/21549/hm21090022067
Alternate number:
BY.T-166 and T-166 (original number)
Description:
The blue object is a mantra scroll sewn into a piece of blue cloth. Such scrolls are made for inserting into bronze images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Each scroll has particular mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams meant for placement in a particular part of the image. Some, for example, are for the head area, some for the throat, some for the heart. Each roll is composed of a large number of sheets of thin paper printed with the mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams. They are stacked and rolled up very tightly, and then sewn into cloth cases and labled. In the course of the consecration ritual for the bronze image, the scrolls are carefully inserted in proper order, arranged around a carved and insribed sandalwood centerpost, the empty spaces filled with rare dried herbs. The process is completed with a final layer of required substances and symbols that fill the base of the image, and then all is sealed with a copper bottom plate.
Collection place:
Tibet
Verbatim coll. place:
Tibet
Collector:
Theos C. Bernard
Materials:
Ink and Paper (fiber product)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Mantras and Scrolls (information artifacts)
Function:
7.0 Use not specified (Communication, Records, Currency, and Measures)
Production date:
19th-20th century
Department:
Asia (except western Russia)
Comment:
Note: In the photograph of this item, a folded manuscript was mistakenly placed alongside of the scroll T-166. That manuscript is cataloged with the Tibetan Books as: BQ-62.
Images:
Hearst Museum object 1 of 2 titled Mantra scroll, accession number 9-22067, described as The blue object is a mantra scroll sewn into a piece of blue cloth. Such scrolls are made for inserting into bronze images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Each scroll has particular mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams meant for placement in a particular part of the image. Some, for example, are for the head area, some for the throat, some for the heart. Each roll is composed of a large number of sheets of thin paper printed with the mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams. They are stacked and rolled up very tightly, and then sewn into cloth cases and labled. In the course of the consecration ritual for the bronze image, the scrolls are carefully inserted in proper order, arranged around a carved and insribed sandalwood centerpost, the empty spaces filled with rare dried herbs. The process is completed with a final layer of required substances and symbols that fill the base of the image, and then all is sealed with a copper bottom plate.Hearst Museum object 2 of 2 titled Mantra scroll, accession number 9-22067, described as The blue object is a mantra scroll sewn into a piece of blue cloth. Such scrolls are made for inserting into bronze images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Each scroll has particular mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams meant for placement in a particular part of the image. Some, for example, are for the head area, some for the throat, some for the heart. Each roll is composed of a large number of sheets of thin paper printed with the mantras, prayers and mystic diagrams. They are stacked and rolled up very tightly, and then sewn into cloth cases and labled. In the course of the consecration ritual for the bronze image, the scrolls are carefully inserted in proper order, arranged around a carved and insribed sandalwood centerpost, the empty spaces filled with rare dried herbs. The process is completed with a final layer of required substances and symbols that fill the base of the image, and then all is sealed with a copper bottom plate.

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