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 token. Although a king of this country will try to destroy the impression, it can never be entirely destroyed.’ And indeed it has not been destroyed unto this day. Once a king who hated Buddhism caused the top of the stone to be pared off, so as to remove the impression; but after the surface had been removed, the footprints reappeared upon the stone.”

Concerning the virtue of the representation of the footprints of the Buddha, there is sometimes quoted a text from the Kwan-butsu-sanmai-kyō [“Buddha-dhyâna-samâdhi-sâgara-sûtra”], thus translated for me:—“In that time Shaka [“Sâkyamuni”] lifted up his foot…. When the Buddha lifted up his foot all could perceive upon the sole of it the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes…. And Shaka said:—‘Whosoever beholds the sign upon the sole of my foot shall be purified from all his faults. Even he who beholds the sign after my death shall be delivered from all the evil results of all his errors.’ ” Various other texts of Japanese Buddhism affirm that whoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha “shall be freed from the bonds of error, and conducted upon the Way of Enlightenment.”