About

• Mudras are a non-verbal mode of communication and self-expression, consisting of hand gestures and finger postures.
• Mudras are most commonly associated with visual depictions of the Buddha (or Buddharupa), with different gestures conveying different moods and meanings, signifying the subtle manifestations of the Buddha’s states of realisation.
• In the earliest depictions of Buddharupa, four mudras can be found: 
  • the abhaya mudra – gesture of fearlessness
  • the bhumisparsha mudra – Earth-touching gesture
  • the dharmachakra mudra – gesture of the wheel of dharma
  • the dhyana mudra – gesture of meditation
• With the evolution of Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) and Vajrayana (Thunderbolt Vehicle) Buddhism, and the proliferation of Buddhist artwork outside India, hundreds of mudras entered Buddhist iconography.
• In tantric Buddhist traditions, the mudras came to be associated with dynamic ritual hand movements, where they symbolised material offerings, enacted forms of worship, or signified relationships with visualised deities.

Depictions of Buddha

• For about 500 years after the Buddha, who lived in the 6th or 5th Century BCE he was not depicted in the form of an image or sculpture. At Sanchi, for instance, the Buddha is symbolised by a vacant throne or a footprint.
• The earliest depictions of the Buddha in physical form date to roughly around the turn of the first millennium. Depictions started appearing in the Gandhara art from the northwestern edge of the Indian subcontinent (present day Pakistan and Afghanistan), which drew on Hellenistic influences, and later in the art of the Gupta period, in the Gangetic plains.