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yamatodamashii
2nd September 2001, 19:35
I recently bought a book on yogic mudras. Am I imagining the similarities to Buddhist kuji, or is this a carryover from Tibetan religion?

Joseph Svinth
7th September 2001, 10:22
As I understand it (and I could easily be wrong), about 750 CE, a peripatetic Indian monk called Amoghavajra introduced the esoteric finger movements, or mudra, of Yogacara Buddhism into China. As memorizing these finger movements was supposed to cause subtle changes to the practitioner’s internal energy (which is possible, since the hands provide more sensory input to the brain than all other parts of the body except the eyes, tongue, and nose), they were subsequently incorporated into some East Asian martial arts, to include some branches of ninpo.

Now, some historians think that these finger movements originated in North Indian classical dance (nata). On the other hand, the Chinese martial arts use just a few finger signs, so who knows? Be that as it may, most of the Chinese finger signs definitely have numerological significance, and as a result the Chinese patterns may owe more to the arithmetic pidgin known as "finger counting."

Also known to the Indians as mudra, finger counting was much more than simply adding one plus one using fingers and toes. Instead, it was an international mercantile language having both esoteric and martial implications. For instance, the Arabs observed that one drew a bow in the same way that one made the number thirty. This in turn referred to the Mongol draw, which locks the thumb into place using the index finger, rather than the Mediterranean draw, in which the string is pulled using the index, ring, and middle fingers.