On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c19.97

v2.c19.97

The pilgrim proceeds to relate that to the north of the Bodhi Tree was the place of Buddha’s walking up and down. Julai, he states, on the attainment of bodhi remained motionless under the Tree for seven days. Then he rose, and going to the north of the Tree he walked up and down, east and west, for seven days. There were eighteen strange ornaments for the footsteps in the ten paces of his walking: here men of after times made a base of bricks above three feet high. Yuan-chuang adds that he learned from local records that this base for the sacred footprints indicated the duration of a person's life, its length being greater or less to a devotee according to the years of his life.