Why do the tibetans turn prayer wheels? The famous tibetan handicraft, Thangka

During your tibet tours, if you are pretty interested in tibetan handicrafts, you should really see Thangka. Thangka is a kind of scroll painting which is knited or drawn on the silk, cloth or paper. The pictutures used by Khangka are of a wide range, but most of them fall into the category of religion. Thangka is drawn by colorful natural mineral pigments and is decorated with gold and silver. A good high quality Thangka usually takes months to be finished. The Thangka made by tibetans is precise and rigorous, balanced and variegated, and the drawing styles are mainly paingting with exact delineation and enriched colors and line drawing in traditional ink and brush. The Buddhists usually buy a Thangka, and then take it to a monastery to be sanctified, and finally take it home to be worshiped. When you travel in tibet, you may watch thangka in many monasteries, in the street, or maybe you can even see the tibetans drawing it. Now, along with the running of the Lhasa Railway, it is so easy to have tours to tibet, so why not apply for certain tibet travel permit and prepare your tibet travel?
Do you know prayer wheel? When you travel in tibet, you will meet them. They are tubes made of silver or yak bones or some other materials. During your tibet travel, you may find that there are many local tibetans turning prayer wheels while murmuring some unknown words. In fact, they are just praying. However, why are they turning prayer wheels and what’s the origin of this custom? Initially, the prayer wheel was made for the convenience of the Buddhists who didn’t know words. The Buddhist scriptures were put inside the prayer wheels and the Buddhists turning them clockwise so as to symbolically signify that they have recited the scriptures. Well, this was quite a good method, right? There are bigger prayer wheels as well as the smaller ones and generally, they are all carved with “sixsyllable mantra prayer”. Better seeing by yourself than reading some still words. Why not travel to tibet and have a close look at the prayer wheel or maybe buy one for yourself during real tibet tours. There are so many mysteries to be explored in tibet and maybe it’s time for you to take the flight or the train to tibet, anyway, it is 2012 already.