Uppity-Negro.com

Buddhist Art and Architecture: Hand Mudras:

The symbolic gestures of the hands of Buddha images, called mudras, are picture tools of identification of deeper meaning.

And several line drawings of hands demonstrating some of the gestures are included. Oddly enough, I've been doing this one without realizing it:

The Gift bestowing Gesture of Compassion (Varada Mudra) the right hand pendant with the palm turned outwards.

Need to cut that out rightfuckingnow, obviously. It'll just confuse people.

The Buddhist scultures from a wide variety of countries -- and I'll not speculate about how they ended up in a museum in Chicago, because there was probably Unpleasantness involved -- feature figures making one or more (depends on how many hands they have, really) of the gestures. A Google Images search on Mudras brings up better examples than the aforementioned line drawings, but if you're on the 'net, this (somewhat ironically) probably means there's a museum near you with actual examples of the art. Which means leaving the actual computer and going out into the actual world, but I don't think the warbloggers do that very often, and look how utterly, hopelessly fucked up they are.

Ah, this is more like it:

Abhaya Mudra
Abhaya in Sanskrit means fearlessness. Thus this mudra symbolizes protection, peace, and the dispelling of fear. It is made with the right hand raised to shoulder height, the arm crooked, the palm of the hand facing outward, and the fingers upright and joined. The left hand hangs down at the side of the body. In Thailand, and especially in Laos, this mudra is associated with the movement of the walking Buddha (also called 'the Buddha placing his footprint'). It is nearly always used in images showing the Buddha upright, either immobile with the feet joined, or walking.

This mudra, which initially appears to be a natural gesture, was probably used from prehistoric times as a sign of good intentions - the hand raised and unarmed proposes friendship, or at least peace; since antiquity, it was also a gesture asserting power, as with the magna manus of the Roman Emperors who legislated and gave peace at the same time.

Well, except the asserting power bit. I'm an anarchist at heart, really, which causes all sorts of problems with people who do insist there has to be some sort of hierarchy/power relations in every situation. They tend to react to my rejecting their authority as asserting my own, which isn't the case. I'm not saying I have Power, and you don't -- despite your own take very clearly being that You have Power, and I don't -- I'm saying all either of us got is our damn selves.

Might explain the problems I keep running into with tops, that.

Or they just tend to be assholes. Either or.