Buddha footprint

Symbolism

Across Asia, countless impressions of the Buddha’s feet have been preserved, created over many centuries. The Japanese researcher Motoji Niwa spent years locating these relics and counted over 3,000 examples, with roughly 300 in Japan and more than 1,000 in Sri Lanka. Many of these footprints are decorated with carved or painted symbols: a Dharmachakra in the middle of the sole, or sets of 32, 108, or 132 auspicious signs. One of the most celebrated is the natural hollow on top of Sri Padaya in Sri Lanka.

Buddhist tradition says the Buddha flew there during his life and left his mark to show that Sri Lanka would carry forward his teachings, and that he also left footprints in every place where his message would be accepted. In Thailand, the most significant rock-embedded footprint is at Phra Phutthabat. In Tang-dynasty China, a large footprint unearthed in Chengzhou prompted Empress Wu Zetian to rename the era Dazu, or “Big Foot,” in 701 CE. The practice of crafting sculpted footprints began in India, with early examples at Sanchi and Bharhut, created during the pre-Greco-Buddhist period of Buddhist art alongside images of the Bo-Tree and the Dharmachakra. This tradition later flourished in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, and Thailand.

History

Veneration of the feet of gurus or deities was common in ancient India, where placing one's head at or under their feet signified hierarchy. As cetiya, the Buddha's footprint was classified in several ways: some were uddesika (representational relics), others paribhogika (relics of use or contact), and occasionally saririka, as if they were the Buddha's actual feet. Some depictions may signify events in the Buddha's life, while others may show people worshipping at footprint shrines.

A footprint of the Buddha is a concave image of his foot, supposed to have been left by him to mark his passage. Convex images represent the actual soles with all their characteristics. Following the traditional triple division of cetiya, the concave form is considered a sort of paribhogika element, indissolubly connected with the Tathagata himself. The convex form can be thought of as an uddissaka element, created by a devoted artist to commemorate the Buddha, though it too may be considered paribhogika by supposition, as noted by Chutiwongs.

French scholar Paul Mus described the footprints as magical objects that enable one to act at a distance on people related to them.