Elements of Buddhist Iconography c4.41

c4.41

The question of terminology offers still another problem. In European literature, the term nandi-pada (lit. “Nandi-foot” or “-trace”) has been applied to the *triśūla* symbol in Buddhist or presumed Buddhist usage, this name deriving from the form *nandi-paam* inscribed beside the symbol as found on the Padaṇa hill near Bombay,²⁵ where hoofmarks are clearly indicated (Fig. A). I have argued against the general applicability of this term,²⁶ and it is far from clear that the label applies to the symbol, and not exclusively to the hoofmarks. Yet in fact the designation “Nandi’s track” and the actual representation of hoofprints at Padaṇa accord well enough with the Śaiva associations, the notion of hoofprints equally well also with an original connection with Agni; that Śiva and Agni can be assimilated and in certain aspects identified needs no demonstration here. The designation “taurine,” employed by some authors, is probably the best available for our symbol, being appropriate equally to Agni, Śiva, or Buddha. In *Ṛg Veda*, I, 65, 1 (*padaiḥ*), and IV, 5, 3 (where Agni is a “mighty bull,” and the Sāman chant “naught other than the hidden track of an ox,” *padaṁ na gor apagūḷham*), the metaphor is employed of tracing the lost Agni by his hoofprints; cf. X, 71, 3, where the tracks (*padavīya*) of Wisdom (*vāc*) are followed by means of the ritual sacrifice, and *ibid.*, III, 39, 6, where Indra finds “by foot and hoof” (*patvat . . . śaphavat*) the wine of life and makes himself master of all the possibilities of existence “hidden” or “hoarded” in the Waters; cf. again *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Up.*, IV, 4, 23, “He should be a knower of the tracks of Brahman” (*tasyaiva syāt padavittam*), and *ibid.*, I, 4, 7, “As though by a footprint (*pada*), indeed, one should find the Angel”—his trace or footprint “set down in the secret place” (*guhā, guhā nihitam, passim*) being found “by the Sacrifice in the Seers” (*Ṛg Veda*, X, 71, 3), “in the heart” (*ibid.*, X, 177, 1), “in the Sea, the Heart, in living things” (*antaḥ samudre hṛdy antar āyuṣi, ibid.*, IV, 58, 11). “Footprint” or “track” is thus tantamount to “vestige” as understood in Scholastic phraseology: *Dhammapada* should perhaps be translated in this sense as “Vestige of the Law,” *dhamma-padāni* as “traces of the Law,” cf. *Ṛg Veda*, X, 71, 3 *vācaḥ padavīyam . . . ṛṣiṣu praviṣṭām*, “footprint of the Word vested in the Seers,” and *pada* as “statement,” “dictum,” in *Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra* II, 98 (see Suzuki’s discussion in his translation, p. 31, note 2). One can hardly doubt that a reminiscence of these ideas underlies the Ch’an-Zen allegory of searching for the lost ox, cf. Suzuki, *Essays in Zen Buddhism*, pp. 357 ff.