Sacred Foot-prints.
Next in importance to the worship of relics is that of foot-prints (Sanskṛit Ṡrī-pada or Ṡrī-pāda). Everywhere throughout Buddhist countries the supposed impressions of the Buddha’s feet are as much honoured as those of the god Vishṇu are by Vaishṇavas.
When Fā-hien reached Gṛidhra-kūṭa (see pp. [404], [406]), he is said to have used words to the following effect: ‘I, Fā-hien, was born when I could not meet with Buddha, and now I only see the foot-prints which he has left’ (Legge, 83).
It is well known that the practice of bowing down and honouring the feet is a thoroughly Asiatic custom. The idea seems to be derived from a kind of a fortiori argument. If the feet, as the lowest member of the body, are honoured, how much more is homage rendered to the whole man. Hence children honour their parents, not by kissing their faces, but by prostrating themselves at their feet and touching them reverentially. Another reason for venerating the feet is well expressed in one of our hymns:—
O let me see Thy foot-marks,
And in them plant my own;
and in Longfellow’s
Foot-prints on the sands of time;
Foot-prints which perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,