zenjou-in　禅定印

KEY WORD :　art history / sculptures

Lit. meditation mudra. A mudra or hand gesture *in 印, formed by placing the palms on top of one another and resting them in the lap. It symbolizes the Buddha in a state of meditation, and is found only in seated images. In the iconography of Indian Buddhism it is called the meditation mudra (Sk: dhyana-mudra) or contemplation mudra (Sk: samadhi-mudra), and the Sino-Japanese designation represents a translation of the former: it is also abbreviated to jou-in 定印. The prototype of this mudra, although not identical to it, appears already in Gandharan sculpture, and it may be seen in India in scenes depicting the Buddha seated in a cave preaching the Dharma to *Taishakuten 帝釈天 (Sk: Indra) and the offering of honey by a monkey to the Buddha. Later, with the rise of Esoteric Buddhism mikkyou 密教, it became the mudra characteristic of *Amida 阿弥陀. In the iconography of Japanese Buddhism, two types came to be differentiated, i.e., the meditation mudra of Amida *mida-no-jouin 弥陀定印, used only in images of Amida, and the meditation mudra of the Dharma-realm *hokkai jouin 法界定印, used mainly with *Dainichi 大日 in the *Taizoukai mandara 胎蔵界曼荼羅.

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