Sulawesi Tana Toraja. Painted footprints on a rock. Simple Buddhist place of worship. Rural Indonesia. You are here. Eleven toes
During the earliest period of Buddhist art, when the Buddha was not represented anthropomorphically, the Buddha s footprint was one of the symbols which were used in narrative reliefs depicting the Buddha's life scenes to indicate his personal presence. In the Gandharan region where the Buddha image in human form was first created there are indications that the Buddha's footprint was worshiped in the same manner as an iconic figure. Now memorials like these usually show that people believe the Lord Buddha has walked the earth here somewhere. Here in the heartland of Sulawesi Indonesia the reason may simply be that this is all these followers of the Buddha can afford. Or maybe dare to display! The soles of the Buddha's feet are said to be flat with all the toes of equal length. Also there is no record anywhere that suggests he had 11 toes as these outlines show! From the 32 main features - lakkha na - which distinguish the Buddha, Diigha ngulii (literally this means big fingers but in fact it refers to the fingers and toes of the Buddha being of even length) makes the hands and feet very strong by comparison to our own, for whom all our fingers and toes are of different lengths.
Size: 5475px × 3561px
Location: Tana Toraja Sulawesi Indonesia
Photo credit: © Wiskerke / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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