Category
Mudras
21 entries. Click any to see everything it connects to.
Mudras are the symbolic hand positions of Hindu and Buddhist practice, used in iconography, dance and meditation. Each has a name and a meaning, the abhaya mudra of fearlessness, the dhyana mudra of meditation, and the same gestures recur across sculpture, painting and ritual. In classical Indian dance the vocabulary of hasta mudras is far larger and is used narratively.
Facts
Overview
- Entries in the Atlas
- 21
- What Defines This Grouping
- Codified hand and body gestures of Hindu and Buddhist practice, functioning as an iconographic and ritual language across South, Southeast and East Asia. The hasta vocabulary of classical Indian dance is a separate and far larger repertoire. 1
Attestation
- Era of Attestation
- Fixed gestures identify figures in Buddhist sculpture from the early centuries CE. 1
Status
- Status Today
- Living tradition: mudras remain in ritual, iconographic and dance use across Asia today. 2
Learn More
The Symbolic Gestures
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.
Gesture as language
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.
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