Bhumisparsha Mudra is a mudra, a symbolic hand-gesture of the Indian religious traditions, known in Sanskrit as Bhumisparsha Mudra and signifying the touching of the earth.
Form and meaning
In this seal the right hand reaches down over the knee to touch the ground. It recalls the moment of the Buddha's enlightenment, when he called the earth to witness against the temptations of Mara.
Mudras appear across Hindu and Buddhist ritual, iconography, classical dance and yoga, where a fixed position of the hands carries a settled meaning or is held to direct attention and breath. The gesture is described here within those documented traditions.
History and attestation
Bhumisparsha Mudra depicts a specific narrative moment: the Buddha, seated beneath the Bodhi tree and challenged by the demon Mara to prove his right to enlightenment, touches the earth with his right hand to call the earth itself, personified in some tellings as the goddess Sthavara or Vasundhara, to witness his accumulated merit, a scene generally known as the Maravijaya, the victory over Mara. The seal is the standard hand position for seated Buddha images across Sri Lanka and Thailand in particular, where Maravijaya-posture Buddhas are the most commonly produced statue type, and it appears combined with the left hand resting palm-up in the lap, sometimes read as holding an alms bowl.