Mudras in Indian Dance
webindia123.com
webindia123.com
It's a fairly comprehensive write-up. I'm mostly familiar with the Hatha Yoga context of mudras.
There's also a few dozen books on the topic. I'd stick to the older more original texts if you want a real understanding, and stay away from the more modern new age fluffy bunny "crystal mudras" nonsense.
Performing mudras as part of meditation can be a kind of physical mnemonic device, to help focus on whatever concept the mudra is meant to represent.
You could think of praying with hands together as a kind of mudra - posing your hands to access a certain state of mind.
I couldn't say how much overlap there is between chinese qigong and classical indian dance, but probably not none.
Most Indian dance routines have a context and a back story.
These Mudras (Hand gestures), have specific meanings in the context. So if you are aware of the context, the back story and various aspects of the dance, its easy to become immersed into the act. Its like a mime play.
As an example, the last mudra, the one with the three fingers, represents the weapon of Lord Shiva, with which he uses to kill sinners.
At 58:25, there's english explanation along with mudras. I hope that gives you some idea.
This is how it looks in Mohiniyattam, a different form -- https://www.facebook.com/shaaledotcom/videos/502594377555050 . The dancer depicts a scene where Indra (a god) comes to visit the wife of a sage. He comes in the disguise of the sage (when the actual sage is away) and the wife sees through that and laughs at him.
This is Odissi -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYHAUGX1L5U .
Mudras are supposed to have some kind of effect on your mind (although I haven't experienced much of that), but I've certainly felt urges to e.g. connect the tips of my fingers/thumbs together (as in the classic Buddhist 'palms up' meditation mudra), or touch the tip of my tongue to the roof of my mouth ("Khechari mudra" in kriya yoga) while meditating.
Some yogis (ahem) even go so far as to cut the thin bit of skin that connects the tongue to floor of the mouth so that it can be pushed up inside the nasal cavity, behind the soft palette to directly touch the bones between the nostrils. The urge to do this can be great, and apparently can lead to feelings of ecstatic bliss. I feel the urge, but alas, my tongue can't quite hit the spot yet :(
But even just touching the tongue to the roof of the soft palette can let you feel a strong increase in tingles entering the centre of the head.
So as with much of religion, any sort of communication/symbolism related to mudras come later, and are probably created by people unaware of their biological origins.
If you are wondering how a gesture can mean multiple things, then I must tell you it all depends on the context. And truly master dancers and composers know how to tell two or more stories with one dance!
I regularly read something called "Vaishnava Padavali" which are ancient Bengali poems about Krishna and Chaitanya, but at the same time they convey very deeper meanings.
And it is not like metaphors in other languages, where one meaning is "hidden", the second (or third) meaning hides in plain sight.
If you interpret the meaning of a word in one way, you get one meaning, and if you do it another way, you get another. And you can string together multiple storylines and messages from one piece of text.
Let me give you an example- "Varshaa" in Sanskrit means monsoon. And "Varsho" means a year- it means the amount of time in which there is one monsoon. And again, "Varsho" are also mountains where clouds collapse to and brings monsoon. So, depending on the context (or multiple), "Varsho" could either mean a mountain or a year.
A man took it up a notch- Sandhyakar Nandi, who wrote a whole epic, which is a retelling of the Epic Ramayana on one interpretation, but is the life of Pala Emperor Ramapal on other.
In the same way, dance gestures can mean multiple things based on your interpretation. And different interpretations run parallely, together.
Sanskrit is a language with metaphors built-in in the language.
The entry barrier is extremely high, but Sanskrit poems, plays, and epics are one of the most profoundly intellectually stimulating pieces of text in the world.
Lol what? Can you please name a dancer who can do this mysterious thing?
Ps - indian classical dancer here
First, I appreciate this emphasis on shapes of the hands, which is not something you see emphasized in modern dance, and also not in any classical Western dances I am aware of. Yet the hands are very dextrous, so why not? In our mind-map they probably take up a lot of space.
Related, I find it enjoyable how some forms that westerners think of as being for "shadow puppets" or children's games have been elevated here to respected parts of an art form. It's great.
And even if some parts are intentionally silly, or humorous -- well, great! Comedy is necessary.
Second, it's an example of a taxonomy or ontology, which is something I have been thinking a lot about these days. Very clearly there is a continuous space of hand poses, but certain discrete points in that space have been selected to convey meaning.
Finally, it's an escape from the current Culture, which I find exhausting. Yes, please do give me thoughts from a time and place where other thoughts were thought.
Like, imagine the mental state that is required to invent this taxonomy. You'll get some of that by thinking about it. It's like a breath of fresh air.
Here is my take: Mudras are an elaborate form of encoded symbolism with a long history in culture that influences a large part of the world. People trained in classical Indian dance will be able to decode a story based on these gestures, whereas someone who doesn't know much about it won't get the meaning. If you think about it like that, it's quite similar to code. At the end of the day, computer code is also just symbolism - so we as practitioners of this particular kind of symbolism can always learn about other forms of symbolism to improve our craft.