When the Buddha reached nirvana, he was said to make the gesture of earth-touching: Sitting in the lotus position, with one hand in meditation position and the other lightly touching the ground in front of him, he held the earth as witness of his enlightenment. Buddhist hand gestures, called mudra in Sanskrit, are a language of their own. The position of fingers and the hand communicates a variety of messages. They are used in Buddhist and Hindu ceremonies, statuary and dance. While the gestures commonly seen in paintings and statues from India, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia boil down to no more than ten common ones, they are believed to be the basis of hand gestures used in dances all over Asia. A few dances that incorporate mudra come from the birthplace of Buddhism and Hinduism: India.
Classical Indian dance was born in the temples. Each dance is accompanied by a song whose lyrics tell a religious story. The dancer, using her gestures and expressions, mimes the story. In this sense, classical Indian dance bridges the gap between dancing and acting. Now, it is performed mostly in cultural festivals. According to India’s National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama, only eight dance styles qualify as classical Indian dance; two of them are considered to be direct descendants of temple dance: Bharatanatyam and Odissi. Of the two, Odissi has older archeological evidence and fewer modern variant forms. It is sometimes described as “sculpture in movement” because its poses are taken directly from the statues in Bhubaneswar, the “City of Temples.” At one time, the city boasted 7,000 shrines, each with intricate dancing statuettes carved into its stone walls.
A typical Odissi piece is performed to live musical and vocal accompaniment. The dance itself consists of six parts: The mangalacharan praises the lord through a hymn; battu nrutya is a rhythmic piece composed of statuesque poses in rapid succession; pallavi is a purely technical component of dance devoid of a lyrical meaning; the abhinaya is the storytelling portion; the dashavataar describes the six incarnations of Lord Vishnu; and finally, the moksha portrays nirvana (the liberation of the soul) and is performed to drums.
The abhinaya, the storytelling portion, is the bulk of the dance piece. Mudra, facial expressions and body movements help the dancer mime the story being sung and express the moods of all characters involved in it. Because Odissi is a solo dance form and classical Indian dance movements are highly specific, a viewer must have sufficient understanding of the lyrics and religious story being parlayed, and the meaning of each gesture. For example, if the song is about a god who crushes the demon of ignorance, the dancer may be stomping her feet one moment and shielding herself the next—portraying the god and the demon at the same time. If the viewer is unfamiliar with both the story and the dancer’s movements, the performance is at best something pretty to behold.
Aside from the face, the hands are most expressive. The human hands’ ten fingers bent in different ways and held at different angles can produce endless gestures, but according to the Natya Sastra, the official guidebook of Indian arts, there are only 29 official mudra in the right hand and 28 in the left. Single-handed mudras are called asamyuta hasta (hasta means “hand”) and double-handed mudras are called samyuta hasta. With so many stories to tell and so few hand gestures to do it with, each mudra has developed multiple meanings, much like homophones. For example, one of the more common mudras is the pataka, where the right hand is held up flat, and the fingers are touching. The Abhinaya Darpana, another ancient dance text, contains the following verse dictating the uses of the pataka mudra:
“To begin dance, clouds, forest, to refuse things/ the chest or breast, night sky, river, the heaven /horse, to cut or to destroy, wind, to indicate lying down, to go or try to go/ greatness, to give or offer something, moonlight, severe sunlight/ to open doors, meaning of seven case endings, waves/ entering a street, equal or to signify equality, anointing the body/ to indicate oneself, to take an oath, to indicate distaste/ palm leaves, shield, to touch things/ to bless, a great king/ to indicate ‘this and that’ , ocean, to indicate well being/ to address a person, to move forward, to indicate a sword/ month, year, rainy days, to broom a place/ In this way pataka hasta should be used.”
Granted, the pataka has more meanings than other mudras, but without the benefit of context, reading the meaning of mudras would be impossible. A mudra in Indian dance is merely a single word laden with meaning. It is the dancer’s arms and feet, stances and eyes, used in combination with mudras, which form a coherent thought. That thought then serves as a sentence in the abhinaya. Each component of the dance synergizes to honor the faiths that brought it into being.
Classical Indian dance was born in the temples. Each dance is accompanied by a song whose lyrics tell a religious story. The dancer, using her gestures and expressions, mimes the story. In this sense, classical Indian dance bridges the gap between dancing and acting. Now, it is performed mostly in cultural festivals. According to India’s National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama, only eight dance styles qualify as classical Indian dance; two of them are considered to be direct descendants of temple dance: Bharatanatyam and Odissi. Of the two, Odissi has older archeological evidence and fewer modern variant forms. It is sometimes described as “sculpture in movement” because its poses are taken directly from the statues in Bhubaneswar, the “City of Temples.” At one time, the city boasted 7,000 shrines, each with intricate dancing statuettes carved into its stone walls.
A typical Odissi piece is performed to live musical and vocal accompaniment. The dance itself consists of six parts: The mangalacharan praises the lord through a hymn; battu nrutya is a rhythmic piece composed of statuesque poses in rapid succession; pallavi is a purely technical component of dance devoid of a lyrical meaning; the abhinaya is the storytelling portion; the dashavataar describes the six incarnations of Lord Vishnu; and finally, the moksha portrays nirvana (the liberation of the soul) and is performed to drums.
The abhinaya, the storytelling portion, is the bulk of the dance piece. Mudra, facial expressions and body movements help the dancer mime the story being sung and express the moods of all characters involved in it. Because Odissi is a solo dance form and classical Indian dance movements are highly specific, a viewer must have sufficient understanding of the lyrics and religious story being parlayed, and the meaning of each gesture. For example, if the song is about a god who crushes the demon of ignorance, the dancer may be stomping her feet one moment and shielding herself the next—portraying the god and the demon at the same time. If the viewer is unfamiliar with both the story and the dancer’s movements, the performance is at best something pretty to behold.
Aside from the face, the hands are most expressive. The human hands’ ten fingers bent in different ways and held at different angles can produce endless gestures, but according to the Natya Sastra, the official guidebook of Indian arts, there are only 29 official mudra in the right hand and 28 in the left. Single-handed mudras are called asamyuta hasta (hasta means “hand”) and double-handed mudras are called samyuta hasta. With so many stories to tell and so few hand gestures to do it with, each mudra has developed multiple meanings, much like homophones. For example, one of the more common mudras is the pataka, where the right hand is held up flat, and the fingers are touching. The Abhinaya Darpana, another ancient dance text, contains the following verse dictating the uses of the pataka mudra:
“To begin dance, clouds, forest, to refuse things/ the chest or breast, night sky, river, the heaven /horse, to cut or to destroy, wind, to indicate lying down, to go or try to go/ greatness, to give or offer something, moonlight, severe sunlight/ to open doors, meaning of seven case endings, waves/ entering a street, equal or to signify equality, anointing the body/ to indicate oneself, to take an oath, to indicate distaste/ palm leaves, shield, to touch things/ to bless, a great king/ to indicate ‘this and that’ , ocean, to indicate well being/ to address a person, to move forward, to indicate a sword/ month, year, rainy days, to broom a place/ In this way pataka hasta should be used.”
Granted, the pataka has more meanings than other mudras, but without the benefit of context, reading the meaning of mudras would be impossible. A mudra in Indian dance is merely a single word laden with meaning. It is the dancer’s arms and feet, stances and eyes, used in combination with mudras, which form a coherent thought. That thought then serves as a sentence in the abhinaya. Each component of the dance synergizes to honor the faiths that brought it into being.
