A Dhyani Buddha statue with the Bhumisparsha Mudra gesture at Borobudur
A Dhyani Buddha statue with the Bhumisparsha Mudra gesture
The image shows a statue of Dhyani Buddha (Meditating Buddha) with the Bhumisparsha Mudra gesture. In Sanskrit, mudra literally means seal but refers to the hand gesture and bhumisparsha means touching the earth.
In this gesture, the right hand is placed on the knee with the palm facing down, and the palm is bent in such a way that the fingers point to the earth. The left hand is placed on the lap with the palm facing up.
The Bhumisparsha Mudra is interpreted as Buddha calling the earth as witness, and the Buddha with this mudra is known as Asokabhya. In Borobudur, all the Buddha statues facing east have this mudra.
There are 432 Dhyani Buddha statues on the Rūpadhātu layer of the Borobudur. Although these statues look alike, they have different hand gestures. In Buddhism, there are five different mudras, which are: Bhumisparsha Mudra, Dhyana Mudra, Abhaya Mudra, Vara Mudra, and Vitāraka Mudra. The Buddha statues facing a particular cardinal direction have the same mudras.
Here are the statues with the other type of mudras:
– Dhyana Mudra
– Abhaya Mudra
– Vara Mudra
– Vitāraka Mudra
Related Pages
– Borobudur, Prambanan, Bali, Indonesia
– Angkor Wat, Angkor Wat Bas-Reliefs, Banteay Srei, Cambodia
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