huge mass of gneiss and hornblende, forming the
living rock, there is the rude outline of a gigantic foot about five
feet long, and of proportionate breadth.

Sir Emerson Tennent, who has given a full and interesting account of
this last Phrabat in his work on Ceylon, supposes that it was
originally a natural hollow in the rock, afterwards artificially
enlarged and shaped into its present appearance; but whatever may have
been its origin at first, its present shape is undoubtedly of great,
perhaps prehistoric, antiquity. In the sacred books of the Buddhists
it is referred to, upwards of three hundred years before Christ, as
the impression left of Buddha's foot when he visited the earth after
the Deluge, with gifts and blessings for his worshippers; and in the
first century of the Christian era it is recorded that a king of
Cashmere went on a pilgrimage to Ceylon for the express purpose of
adoring this _Sri-pada_, or Sacred Footprint. The Gnostics of the
first Christian centuries attributed it to Ieu, the first man; and in
one of the oldest manuscripts in existence, now in the British
Museum--the Coptic version of the "Faithful Wisdom," said to have been
written by the great Gnostic philosopher Valentinus in the fourth
century--there is mention made of this venerable relic, the Saviour
being said to inform the Virgin Mary that He has appointed the Spirit
Kalapataraoth as guardian over it. From the Gnostics the Mohammedans
received the tradition; for they believe that when Adam was expelled
from Paradise he lived many years on this mountain alone, before he
was reunited to Eve on Mount Arafath, which overhangs Mecca. The early
Portuguese settlers in the island attributed the sacred footprint to
St. Thomas, who is said by tradition to have preached the Gospel,
after the ascension of Christ, in Persia and India, and to have
suffered martyrdom at Malabar, where he founded the Christian Church,
which still goes by the name of the Christians of St. Thomas; and they
believed that all the trees on the mountain, and for half a league
round about its base, bent their crowns in the direction of this
sacred object--a mark of respect which they affirmed could only be
offered to the footstep of an apostle. The Brahmins have appropriated
the sacred mark as the footprint of their goddess Siva. At the present
day the Buddhists are the guardians of the shrine; but the worshippers
of other creeds are not prevented from paying their homage