1 The Chinese title is pronounced by Japanese as Sei-iki-ki.
"Sei-iki"(the Country of the West) was the old Japanese name for
India; and thus the title might be rendered, "The Book about
India." I suppose this is the work known to Western scholars as
Si-yu-ki.

2 "One shaku and eight sun." But the Japanese foot and inch are
considerably longer than the English.

3 A monument at Nara exhibits the S'ripada in a form differing
considerably from the design upon the Tokyo pedestals.

4 Lit.: "The thousand-character" sign.

5 On some monuments and drawings there is a sort of disk made by
a single line in spiral, on each toe,--together with the image of
a small wheel.


II

Strange facts crowd into memory as one contemplates those graven
footprints,--footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human
personality of which they remain the symbol. Twenty-four hundred
years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the
mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the
highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science
anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional
philosophy regarding the secret unity of life, the endless
illusions of matter and of mind, and the birth and death of