Spinning the wheel brings the same benefits as reading the respective texts and each cycle counts as one repetition of the prayer. As many as forty thousand prayers can be tightly rolled up in the ...

This story appears in the May 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine. A cheerful group of Chinese tourists, all from eastern cities, are pushing against an enormous Tibetan prayer wheel.

Spinning the wheel brings the same benefits as reading the respective texts and each cycle counts as one repetition of the prayer. As many as forty thousand prayers can be tightly rolled up in the ...