Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/202

 164 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* B. vi. SEPT. i, iwo. water, shallow, but constantly filling, with which the devotees used to wash their face and eyes ('Yuen-kien-lui-han,' 1701, torn. ccxxxiv. fols. 24-25; cf. Monier-Williams, 'Buddhism,' 1889, p. 511). There is a sculp- ture of a footprint on a gate pillar of the ancient Sanchi Stupa, ascribed to the early part of the first century A.D., and others at Amaravati, supposed to date from the second or third century A.D. (ib., p. 510). Hiuen-Tsiang, in his rSi-yu-ki' (seventh century, Brit. Mus. copy, 15271 b. 2, torn. ii. fol. 13 1.0, mentions a footprint in N&garahara, which the Buddha left for tho benefit of a converted dragon ; those of a horse ridden by an arhat in Tukhara (torn. iii. fol. 19 b), and those of the Buddha which were stamped, for the last time in his life, on a rock, and which King S'as'anka, being irritated by his repeated failures to efface, caused to be thrown into the Ganges (torn. viii. fol. 5 a). In the old kingdom of Kds'ala there existed a footprint of the Buddha appearing in different sizes on different occasions, and that of the lion on which the god Indra descended to the spot ('Yuen-kien-lui-han,' cccxvi. fol. 7 b). For those of the Jainist saints worshipped in India, see Monier-Williams, p. 509. At Malepur, Odoardo Barbosa (died c. 1521) saw the last footmark of St. Thomas (Ramusio, 'Navigation! e Viaggi,' Venetia, 1588, torn. i. fol. 315 c). In Burmah A. Bastian saw the Buddha's footmark on stone at the village of Henzadah (' Die Volker des ostlichen Asien,' 1866, vol. ii. p. 20). Mount Phrabat in Siam possesses the same impression on its western side, and on its summit it exhibits the tracks of elephants and tigers which, it is said, formed his cortege when the Buddha passed over the mountain (Mouhot,' Travels in Indo- China,' 1873, torn. i. p. 280). According to Gamier, the instances of stones with the Buddha» footsteps are innumerable in Laos ('Voyage d'Exploration en Indo-Chine,' 1873, torn. i. p. 280).* Among the Pacific group of islands Turner records in Samoa the footprints of Tiitii, said to have been impressed on a rock on which he stood in the act of pushing the heavens up from the earth (Tylor, ubi supra). Near Taupa, New Zealand, and in Hawaii those of some executed chiefs are visible on rocks (Ratzel, op. cit., vol. i. p. 326). A Japanese tradition explains the meaning • In Western Java some mysterious vestiges are said to be seen on the summit of a mountain ; these are ascribed to certain great progenitors of the native tribes (J. Rigg, in the ' Journal of the Indian Archipelago,' vol. iv. p. 130,1850). of the classic name of the empire, Yamato, by tracing it to the contraction of Yama-ato, or Mountain Tracks, saying that just after the earth was separated from the heavens the former was so muddy that the people were obliged to walk only on mountains, and there their footmarks were copious (Minamoto no Chikafusa,' Shinkw6Seit6ki,' 1339, ed. Omiya, p. 2). On the part of the native archaeolo- gists, their recently invigorated explorations seem to have disclosed no special objects that can indicate their primitive forefathers having paid any respect to the footmarks. (See, e.g., Yagi, 'Nihon K6kogaku,' 1898.) But the notions still lingering among vulgar minds about the naturally formed or deformed appearances of rocks and stones might be taken as betraying their ancestors' thoughts and imaginations. Thus several localities in the empire have rocks with large hollows popularly called footmarks of Daita Botchi, the giant (Kitaiuura, 'Kiyu Sh6ran,' ed. 1882, torn. iv. fol. 16 b); in the province of Kddzuke there is the so-called footstep of Yuriwaka impressed on the rock in his act of penetrating the My6gi mountain with his arrow (Terasnima, 'Wakan Sansai Dzue.' 1713, torn. Ixvi.); in Mikawa a rock remains whereupon the last steps are visible of the fabulous damsel J6ruri, the eponymous personage of all the Japanese dramas (FUzoku Gwahd, No. 88, p. 21, 1895). Of the historical personages named as occa- sioning such strange Tiollows, the warlike priest Benkei (06. 1189) is most notorious, the asserted footmarks of him occurring on the rock at Shishitobi, Omi, on a wall of Waka- yama Castle, Kii, and in many other places. The impressions of another warrior, Kage- kiyo (ob. 1196), are seen near the Kiyornidzu Temple, Ky6to (Fdzoku Gwahd, No. 32, p. 25) ; of the horse of Kadiiwara, the notorious slanderer (ob. 1201), in Suruga(Asai,' T6kaid6 Meishoki,' 1648, torn, iii.); also of the horse of Tokimune, the celebrated avenger of his father's murder, marked on a stone bridge on the Hakone Mountain, and reputed to prove fatal to one who touches it, but to save from beriberi those who adore it with the offering of joss-sticks (Takizawa, 'Saritsu Udan,' 1803, torn. i. ch. ii.). Kinouchi's 'Unkonshi'(1772- 1801) enumerates several localities where stones are produced shaped like the hoof of a horse, some being used as inkstands by the curious. Allied to this are the gravels from the upper stream of the Isudzu, fancifully named God's-Foot Stone (Shitomi,' Ise Sangu Meisho Dzue,' 1797, torn. iii. sub Jin.). I have frequently heard the Japanese talk of the lightning god leaving the marks of