Seals Across the Traditions

Zevism holds the chain of all spirituality from its inception to the present. The seal of the hand runs through that whole chain. It appears wherever humans have addressed the Gods.

• Vedic India. Reciters of the Veda mark the pitch accents with movements of the hand. The Pāṇinīya Śikṣā condemns recitation without them, and the living Kerala tradition still raises the hand for the high accent and lowers it for the low.
• The sacred theatre. The Nāṭyaśāstra (chapter 9) codifies 24 single-hand gestures and 13 gestures of the joined hands. In its vocabulary they are hastas, the hands of the actor who embodies the Gods on stage.
• Hatha Yoga. The Haṭhayogapradīpikā (15th century) devotes its third chapter to the mudras, and the Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā lists 25 of them. In these texts the seals are mostly locks of the whole body; the hand seals accompany them.
• Buddhism. The seals of the Buddha took form in the art of Gandhāra. Each of the Five Tathāgatas holds his own: Vairocana the turning of the wheel, Akṣobhya the touching of the Earth, Ratnasambhava the granting of wishes, Amitābha meditation, Amoghasiddhi fearlessness. In Japanese Shingon the seal of the body joins the mantra of speech and the mandala of mind, the "three mysteries" by which Buddhahood is realised in this very body.
• Kuji-in. Ge Hong's Baopuzi (4th century) gives a secret formula of 9 characters for those who enter the mountains: recited in secret, "there is nothing they will not ward off". In Japan the 9 syllables, Rin, Pyō, Tō, Sha, Kai, Jin, Retsu, Zai, Zen, each received its hand seal and passed through Shingon and Shugendō into the protective practice of the mountain ascetics and of the old martial schools.
• Daoism. Daoist priests form jue by pressing points of the hand with the thumb. They use them when reciting scripture and incantations, when pacing the stars of the Dipper and when summoning the divine generals: to invoke spirits, to command ghosts and to spread the vital breath.
• Egypt. The hieroglyph of a man with raised hands (Gardiner A30) writes dwꜣ, to praise and adore. The Souls of Pe make the henu gesture of jubilation, and two upraised arms (D28) write the ka, the life spirit, crowning the Ka statue of King Hor.
• Greece and Rome. Chryses lifts his hands and prays to Apollo (Iliad 1.450). Worshippers raised their palms to the heavenly Gods and turned them down toward the chthonic. Quintilian writes that "the hands may almost be said to speak" (Institutio Oratoria 11.3.85-86) and describes a gesture "placing the middle finger against the thumb and extending the remaining three" (11.3.92). The bronze votive hands of Sabazios raise thumb, index and middle finger; that gesture of the mysteries later became the Christian sign of blessing.
• Judaism. In the Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6:23-27) the priests raise their hands with the fingers parted to form the letter shin, and the people do not look, for the Divine Presence shines through the fingers.
• Christianity and Islam. The Byzantine blessing hand forms the letters IC XC with its fingers. In the Muslim prayer the right index finger is raised during the testimony of the tashahhud (Sahih Muslim 580a).

The roots differ; the act is the same. The hand takes a form, the form holds a power, and the power is directed toward the divine.