E. Dale Saunders's study works from the actual surviving corpus of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, documenting each mudra's form and meaning as that specific iconographic tradition depicts it, rather than proposing a single universal meaning for a hand gesture across all Buddhist and Hindu traditions. That grounding in one clearly bounded, checkable body of physical evidence is the study's real strength, and also its stated limit. Use it for a mudra's form and meaning as documented in Japanese Buddhist sculpture specifically; a claim about the same-named mudra's use in Hindu yoga or in a different national Buddhist tradition needs a source specific to that separate context, since this study does not claim to cover them.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier1
E. Dale Saunders's scholarly study of mudras as depicted in Japanese Buddhist sculpture, published by Princeton University Press; its evidence base is Japanese Buddhist iconography specifically, so a claim about a mudra's use in Hindu yoga or a different Buddhist tradition needs a source specific to that context. NotesE. Dale Saunders' scholarly study of symbolic hand gestures (mudras) as depicted in Japanese Buddhist sculpture. Use for established scholarly facts about a mudra's form and meaning as documented in the Japanese Buddhist sculptural tradition specifically; its evidence base is Japanese Buddhist iconography, so a claim about a mudra's use in Hindu yoga or a different Buddhist tradition needs a source specific to that context.
Citation
AuthorE. Dale Saunders
PublisherPrinceton University Press
Publication Year1960
URLhttps://archive.org/details/mudrastudyofsymb0000sand
Source Typeacademic monograph
Claims Backed By This Source (124 claims)
This source backs 124 claims across the atlas. As facts: 39 well-attested. As cited relationships: 52 holds. Plus 33 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Mudras, 54 claims: 7 well-attested, 26 holds, 21 general references.
- Disciplines, 26 claims: 2 well-attested, 22 holds, 2 general references.
- Articles, 10 claims: 9 well-attested, 1 general references.
- Fingers, 10 claims: 5 well-attested, 5 general references.
- Sources, 8 claims: 8 well-attested.
- Categories, 5 claims: 4 well-attested, 1 general references.
- Body Parts, 4 claims: 2 well-attested, 1 holds, 1 general references.
- Denominations, 4 claims: 3 holds, 1 general references.
- Deities, 3 claims: 2 well-attested, 1 general references.
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