Hinduism - What Is A Mudra In Indian Dance And Hindu Iconography?


 (meaning "seal") A mudra is a stylized hand gesture in Indian dance, theater, and iconography that expresses a particular meaning, ranging from real things like animals, common items, and Hindu deities to abstract things like emotions.

Performers in the performing arts, notably dance, use gesture alone to create elaborate tales.

Many of these gestures are qualities associated with certain deities in the context of iconography.

The words mudra and hasta ("hand") have considerable syntactic overlap; one difference is that some hastas merely describe the location of the hand, while others have symbolic value, but mudras always have extremely particular symbolic meanings.

~Kiran Atma


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