{"id":331,"date":"2013-01-12T16:36:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T22:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/?p=331"},"modified":"2013-01-12T16:36:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-12T22:06:33","slug":"floored-by-a-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/floored-by-a-foot\/","title":{"rendered":"Floored by a foot"},"content":{"rendered":"

A six-by-three-foot foot. It sat like a huge bench right by the elevators at the Asia Society, part of an exhibit titled \u201cPilgrimage and Buddhist Art.\u201d<\/p>\n

This gigantic stone carving of the Buddha\u2019s right foot, inscribed with 108 auspicious symbols, packed a wallop, more than anything I saw in the exhibit rooms. It felt personal and close, as though the Buddha had just been there, striding through the lobby on his way to the galleries. You could sense the sculptor\u2019s pure longing to feel his presence. I had never seen a Buddha footprint before, and went home to figure out why it moved me so.<\/p>\n

\"Buddha<\/a>I did some research and discovered that Buddha footprints (buddhapada, <\/em>in Sanskrit) are quite common. Both artist-created footprints and \u201creal\u201d prints\u2014foot-shaped impressions on rock, believed to have been made by the Buddha himself\u2014were and still are objects of devotion throughout Buddhist Asia. (The image at the left is of second-century Buddha footprints from northern India at Yale University Art Gallery; the one I saw at the exhibit is here.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In fact footprints (handprints too) have been created and venerated across cultures and history all over the world\u2014from the Chauvet caves in France 30,000 years ago to a temple in Syria dating from 10,000 BCE to the prints of movie stars outside Grauman\u2019s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. One famous \u201cnatural\u201d footprint, at the top of Adam\u2019s Peak<\/a> in Sri Lanka, is claimed by Buddhists; by Hindus (as the footprint of Shiva); by Muslims (as the print of Adam); and by Christians (as the print of St. Thomas the Apostle).<\/p>\n

There are also footprint paintings. Many Tibetan thangkas (paintings on cloth) include the actual handprints and\/or footprints of the lamas they depict. But it was the three-dimensional carvings, conveying as they do a sense of the Buddha\u2019s corporeality, that touched me most.<\/p>\n

So I started thinking about feet. I read about their symbolic, metaphysical, and psychological associations, the ambiguous nature of the footprint as indicator of both presence and absence, mortality and divinity.<\/p>\n

Scrolling through the \u201cBuddha\u2019s Footprint Inspiration Gallery\u201d on a tattoo website<\/a>, I found:<\/p>\n

[The footprint] reminds us that the spiritual life has its feet on the ground, and that while we aspire to “transcendence,” we should never lose awareness of the material plane of existence. At the same time, a disembodied foot speaks of Buddha’s absence, the absence of the human personality, and by extension, his non-attachment to this life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love symbols, so I found all this fascinating. More:<\/p>\n