Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/394

 324 NOTES AND QUERIES. p» s. vi. OCT. 27, woo. circles ; whilst the Vishnava daily marks his forehead with the symbol of Vishnu's foot, and worship the steps of the god with the marks similar to those of the Buddha (Monier-Williams, pp. 508, 514). The tchakra, the most conspicuous of all the marks, as represented by the modern tchakar, a quoit- like missile of steel make (Tavernier,' Travels in India,' Ball's trans., 1889, vol. i. p. 82; Ratzel, op. cit., vol. iii. pp. 374-5), was origi- nally conceived as a symbol of destruction, and it is still recognized as a weapon to be hurled at a demon-foe from the hands of Vishnu or of Krishna, and of so many deities of Neo-Buddhism (Monier-Williams, p. 522; Balfour, 'The Cyclopaedia of India,' 1885, vol. i. p. 640; Tosa, ' Butsuz6 Dzui,' new. ed., 1886, passim). Afterwards it was turned into a wheel, either of gold or silver, of copper or iron, according to the virtue of a conqueror- king, on whose investiture it was supposed to fall from heaven and to go rolling before him wherever he went (Vasubandhu, op. cit., book iii. ch. i.; Eitel, ' Handbook of Chinese Buddhism,' 1888, pp. 171-2). And lastly, this emblem originally of the warlike conquerors became that of the far mightier conquerors in faith, the Buddhas. From these vicissitudes of symbolism which this principal of all auspicious marks on the Buddhas footstep underwent, it is all the more probable that, when we learn the Siamese king is endowed with the epithet " the soles of whose feet resemble those of the Buddha" (Gardner, ' The Faiths of the World,' p. 869)—when we learn that the Cam bod jans call their monarch, who claims his descent from Vishnu, "the great king with divine feet," and esteem as its inborn regalia the mark of tchakra on each hand and foot of a child (Moura, op. cit., torn. i. p. 222; torn. ii. p.' 18)—these are but the survivals of the ancient Brahmanist custom in India of perceiving in the tchakra the especial sign of the worldly conqueror, in the heterogeneous soil of Buddhism, where it still prevails under the assumption that the foot of a sovereign regularly has a mark resembling the principal one among the Buddha's many-shaped signs of mightiness. Another religious idea attached to the footprint takes its rise from the significance of precedence or guidance which it readily suggests to our mind, as is apparent from many Chinese expressions; for instance, "fragrant footmark" for the pattern of morals ; and " virtuous footstep that proved auspicious," used to congratulate a man having a good, enviable child (Kiu Hai-shan, op. cit., torn. i. fol. 12 a ; torn. ii. fol. 25 b ; cf. Monier-Williams, p. 507). So Mohammedans believe that, in the final judgment of man- kind, all the innocent, treading in the foot- steps of their prophet, will pass over the perilous bridge of the abyss and enter the jates of paradise (Gibbon,' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' ch. i. par. 17); and in ancient Ireland it formed a part of the inaugural ceremony of a new chief to stand on the footprints of the founder of his house engraved on a stone while he was receiving an oath to preserve all the old customs of the country inviolable (J. J. Bryan in Folk-Lore, vol. vii. p. 82, 1896). To conclude, I will say that the regard paid to foot-outlines as records of a pilgrimage or visit took its origin in times quite im- memorial, when the footsteps were thought of as mysterious accompaniments of the material existence of men and animals, as their shadows and reflections, which notion, associated with the likeness to the steps man had found in various natural objects and for- mations, eventually culminated in the fancy that even spiritual beings actually had their tracks. The footstep far surpassed the shadow and reflection in the facility with which its copy could be produced and kept, and the careful observations of foot-outlines variously formed constituted an essential basis of the wellbeing of men or of society : thus a usage came into existence of preserving in some way or other their duplicates as a memorial. As it was deemed so mysterious a counter- part of the human being, naturally the foot-impression was conceived to have its producer's powers imparted to it, and con- sequently to be capable of acting with him in sympathetic communications. This imagina- tion, assisted by the multitudinous ideas growing out of the examination of the lines and marks on the sole, and by the symbolistic meanings which a footstep readily suggests to the mind in relation to the acts of govern- ing, possessing, and preceding others, finally promoted the so-called " sacred footprint " to be an object of worship among those people who seek thereby to be protected and guided in the righteous path. One thing still remains in need of special mention here. Without any connexion with the religious and allied movements, there are not lacking some instances of artificial foot- steps fashioned for absolute usefulness. Thus in Japan, on the precipitous coast path of Umaoroshi, a long scries of tracks are en- graved in the rocks, without treading on which no man can pass the route in safety (Fdzoku Gwah6, No. 45, p. 23, 1892). KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. 1, Crescent Place, South Kensington, S.W.