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Footprints and Faith: Religion and the Landscape in Early Modern Britain and Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Alexandra Walsham
Alexandra Walsham*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

The idea that divine beings, holy people and magical creatures leave behind permanent marks of their immortality on the surface of the earth is common to many cultures and spiritual systems. Throughout history curious hollows, cavities, and coloured stains on stone and rock have been explained as tangible evidence of the presence and intervention of deities, saints, prophets, angels and demons. The folk motif of the miraculous impression of a foot, hand or limb finds frequent expression within Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Footprint shrines and cults abound in the Middle East, India, south-east Asia and China, from the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and Qadam Sharif in Delhi to Phra Sat in Thailand. Variously revered as the footmark of Buddha, Siva, Adam and St Thomas the Aposde, Sri Pada in Sri Lanka is perhaps the most compelling emblem of the polyvalency of this intriguing phenomenon and its capacity to range across the full spectrum of religious traditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 46: God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World , 2010 , pp. 169 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2010

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References

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25 Schama, Landscape and Memory, 436—37.

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