Footprints of the Buddha

This woodblock print would have been a relatively affordable image that a Mongol traveler might have brought back as a souvenir from a pilgrimage to Wutaishan, a holy mountain in North China sacred to Chinese and Tibetan Buddhists. From the Tibetan text we know that the original woodblock for this image was carved at Pusading Monastery at Wutaishan. From the Chinese text we learn that an imperial decree commanded the overseer of Wutaishan, the great teacher Ngawang Lobzang (1601–1687), to donate money and to paint and publish it. This important monk was both Pusading’s abbot and manager of Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist affairs at Wutaishan. He held this office from 1659 to 1668, allowing us to closely date the carving of the original woodblock to the early second half of the 17th century.

The Tibetan colophon reads: “These footprints are the footprints of the Bhagavan (the Buddha) at the time of his nirvana. Having been brought from India to Wutaishan, a print was carved of them on an auspicious day at Pusading. May it be auspicious!”