Pada (foot)

Pāda is the Sanskrit term for "foot"[1] (cognate to English foot, Latin pes, Greek pous), with derived meanings "step, stride; footprint, trace; vestige, mark".

The term has a wide range of applications, including any one of four parts (as it were one foot of a quadruped), or any sub-division more generally, e.g. a chapter of a book (originally a section of a book divided in four parts).

As a measure of length, a pada amounts to 12 or 15 fingers' breadth, or 1/2 or 1/3 or 3/7 of a Prakrama.

In Sanskrit grammar, a pada is any inflected word (noun or verb).

Gautama Buddha's footprints symbolized his presence, and his image and iconography developed several centuries after he had died.