Mudras

Mudras are the symbolic hand and body positions of Hindu and Buddhist practice, used in iconography, sacred dance and meditation. Each has a name and a meaning, the abhaya mudra of fearlessness and protection, the dhyana mudra of meditation, the bhumisparsha mudra of touching the earth by which the Buddha called the earth to witness, the dharmachakra mudra of turning the wheel of teaching.

The same gestures recur across sculpture, painting and ritual throughout South, Southeast and East Asia, so that a figure's mudra tells the viewer what moment or quality is being shown.

Mudras function as a visual language: in iconography they identify a deity or a scene and convey its meaning; in meditation and tantric practice they are held to focus and seal energy; in classical Indian dance they form an elaborate vocabulary of expression. The hand positions of Shingon and other esoteric Buddhist schools carry this into East Asian practice.

The atlas gives each mudra its form, its name and its meaning across the traditions that use it. Mudras connect the East Asian Buddhist material under Eastern Systems with the wider Indian body of practice.