rporate the relic into their own religious
system, and to attribute it to Vishnu. Thousands of Hindoo pilgrims
from all parts of India now visit the shrine every year. Indeed to the
worshippers of Vishnu the Temple of Vishnupad at Gaya is one of the
most holy in all India; and as we are informed in the great work of
Dr. Mitra, the later religious books earnestly enjoin that no one
should fail, at least once in his lifetime, to visit the spot. They
commend the wish for numerous offspring on the ground that, out of the
many, one son might visit Gaya, and by performing the rites prescribed
in connection with the holy footstep, rescue his father from eternal
destruction. The stone is a large hemispherical block of granite, with
an uneven top, bearing the carvings of two human feet. The frequent
washings which it daily undergoes have worn out the peculiar
sectorial marks which the feet contain, and even the outlines of the
feet themselves are but dimly perceptible. English architects are now
engaged in preserving the ruins of the splendid temple associated with
this footprint, where the ministry of India's great teacher--the
"Light of Asia"--began. In the Indian Museum at Calcutta there is a
large slab of white marble bearing the figure of a human foot
surrounded by two dragons. It was brought from a temple in Burmah,
where it used to be worshipped as a representation of Buddha's foot.
It is seven inches long and three inches broad, and is divided into a
hundred and eight compartments, each of which contains a different
mystical mark.

At Gangautri, on the banks of the Ganges, is a wooden temple
containing a footprint of Ganga on a black stone. In a strange
subterranean temple, inside the great fort at Allahabad, there are two
footprints of Vishnu, along with footprints of Rama, and of his wife
Sita. In India the "kaddam rassul," or supposed impression of
Mohammed's foot in clay, which is kept moist, and enclosed in a sort
of cage, is not unfrequently placed at the head of the gravestones of
the followers of Islam. On the summit of a mountain one hundred and
thirty-six miles south of Bhagalpur is one of the principal places of
Jain worship in India. On the table-land are twenty small Jain temples
on different craggy heights, which resemble an extinguisher in shape.
In each of them is to be found the Vasu Padukas--a sacred foot similar
to that which is seen in the Jain temple at Champanagar. The sect of
the Jain in South Bih