Mudrā and the many shades of grey

In a class recently I offered the mudrā where you put the thumbtips and the forefinger fingertips together and leave the other fingers extended. This mudrā is a favourite mudrā for the practice of meditation. I already knew that this mudrā is named differently by different people, and often the palms up and the palms down versions are given the opposite names by different sources.

I was originally taught this mudra as Chin Mudrā with the palms up, and Jñāna Mudrā with the palms down. These two mudrās are different in their energy. Stop reading now, close your eyes and try them out and see, before I offer my experience.

To me, palms down is internalizing, and palms up is externalizing. There is more receiving and openness in palms up, more surrender and inward turning when the palms are down. You might like to drop a comment and tell me what you found. When sitting down to meditation, we can choose which mudrā based on the support we need or the intention we set for the meditation.

In class that day I said that I was taught the names this way, but others teach them the other way, but then I added, it is only a name anyway, the essence of the mudrā remains the same, no matter what you call it.

Since that class I received communications from one member of the class that they were taught it the other way, and I was offered a mudra handbook by another, which did not mention the palms down version, and gave the palms up version in the alternative spelling of Jñāna as Gyan Mudrā. I grant that spelling might land an English speaker closer to the pronunciation of Jñāna, but I love to give things in the IAST standard for transliteration with diacritical marks, as I believe once it is learnt it is as robust as the scripts of India that leave no room for pronunciation doubt or fashion. So, you might note it is a long ā at the end of mudrā, not a short one!

I used to teach Yogic Physiology to yoga teacher trainees and that meant teaching mudrā and other material that related to the subtle body. Mudrā might involve making an attitude with a part of the physical body, but it creates changes in the subtle, or energy body. I taught what I had been taught, the best of my knowledge at that time, well researched on top of what had been directly taught to me from whatever resources I could find. Imagine my horror a little down the track when I found out that much of what I had been taught, and that I had found in books, and passed on, was a modern invention and not at all found in tradition! There I had been, innocently participating in the propagation of misinformation.

This little exchange about mudrā sent me back to the books and the research. I decided to look on my own bookshelf first. I have there one of the most influential books on mudrā in the contemporary era, Mudras: Yoga in your Hands by a Swiss yoga teacher named Gertrud Hirschi. She gives these mudrās and names them thus (spelling as per the book): “When your fingers point up to Heaven, it is called the Jnana Mudra; when your fingers point down to earth, it is called the Chin Mudra.” This book was first published in German in 1998, and the English translation first appeared in 2000. I have found it is always a good idea to enquire of a teacher about their lineage. I wondered where Hirschi got her information, but her bio notes on her own website do not tell of her lineage or who her teachers were.

To try and get to the traditional sources, starting with Indian sources might seem a good place. There is still a need for caution there too. There has been a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, otherwise known as the pizza effect, happening in the yoga world in India. This means that yoga spread to the west, collected some new interpretations which somehow found their way back into the way yoga is done back in India. Nevertheless, going to Indian sources seems like a good idea. What iss on my shelf by Indian authors that spoke to the subject of mudrā?

Not much it turns out. First to hand is the classic, Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Saraswati published by Bihar Yoga first edition 1969. Here is what it said.

“Jnana and Chin Mudras

Jnana Mudra (psychic gesture of knowledge)

Assume a comfortable meditation posture.
Fold the index finger so that they touch the inside root of the thumbs. Straighten the other three fingers of each hand so that they are relaxed and slightly apart. Place the hands on the knees with the palms facing down.
Relax the hands and the arms.

Chin Mudra (psychic gesture of consciousness)

Chin mudra is performed in the same way as jnana mudra, except that the palms of both hands face upwards, with the backs of the hands resting on the knees.
Relax the hands and arms.

….

Variation: Jnana and chin mudras are often performed with the tip of the thumb and index finger touching and forming a circle. Beginners may find this variation less secure for prolonged periods of meditation, as the thumb and index finger tend to separate more easily when body awareness is lost. Otherwise, this variation is as effective as the basic position.”

More is said, all of it informative, but I encourage you to get the book and read it.

The credentials of by Swami Satyananda Saraswati are impeccable as far as his yogic knowledge are concerned. He found his guru, Swami Sivananda Saraswati, at the age of twenty, and spent 13 years with him at his ashram in Rishikesh. Sivananda then sent him out to the world, and he wandered as a mendicant learning more yogic techniques and practices, for another six years before establishing the International Yoga Fellowship in 1962, and then in 1964, the Bihar School of Yoga. His influence extended internationally.

This well credentialled source who served a 19-year apprenticeship before beginning to teach, teaches Jñāna Mudrā with the palms down and Chin Mudrā with the palms up, and both with the finger into the base of the thumb, with the fingertip version as a variation. He teaches that the arm and hand should be relaxed.

The other Indian source on my bookshelf was B. K. S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga, first published in 1966. Iyengar does not provide a section on mudrā but various mudrās turn up in his prāṇāyāma section. Here he is giving general instructions.

“The left arm is kept straight, the back of the wrist resting on the left knee. The forefinger is bent towards the thumb, its tip touching the tip of the thumb. This is the Jñāna Mudrā described later in the technique.

The right arm is bent at the elbow and the hand is kept on the nose to regulate the even flow of breath and to gauge its subtlety. This is felt through the tips of the ring and little fingers which control the left nostril and through the tip of the thumb which controls the right nostril. Details of the right hand position are discussed in the technique. In some methods of prāṇāyāma both the hands rest on the knees in Jñāna Mudrā.”

In 1934, at the age of 16 years, Iyengar had been sent to live with his brother-in-law, Sri Tiruvanamallai Krishnamacharya, in Mysore. Krishnamacharya, who is sometimes called the father of modern yoga, had suggested he could improve the sickly lad’s health. However, he neglected Iyengar at first, setting him to household chores instead, and stating he did not believe he would be any good at yoga. Krishnamacharya was under the patronage of the Maharaja of Mysore, who often arranged yoga demonstrations to show off the physical prowess of his pet yoga project subjects. When one of Krishnamacharya’s star pupils departed, he started to teach Iyengar. Iyengar himself says that he received only about two weeks of instruction from his brother-in-law in two years, but he was allowed to practice with the group and his practice proceeded. Three years after he came to live with his brother-in-law he was sent away to Pune to teach yoga. The style he developed was to become famous and very influential throughout the world. His apprenticeship was just three years.

When looking at texts one method I follow to see if the source is trustworthy is to look up something I feel I do know something about. I looked up “chakra” in the Iyengar book.

“Chakra means a nerve-centre, the fly-wheels in the machine, that is the human body. Bandha means fetter or bond. The chakras are the regions situated within the spinal column where the nāḍis cross each other. There are seven of them in the human body.”

It goes on but I am stopping there. The traditional sources, which lie in Tantra, not in Haṭha Yoga, are quite clear. The principle cakras (IAST) are not situated in the spinal column, but on the central channel, which lies to the anterior to the spinal column, rising straight from the middle of the perineum to and through the crown of the head. What is more, to say that there are seven cakras is to place a limitation that tradition does not hold. There are many cakra systems, with different numbers of cakras in use for the purpose of a specific practice. Mr Iyengar did not understand the cakras fully and was being influenced by sources that came from the west, theosophy, and Carl Jung, who discovered cakras through a westerner’s translation of one, late era, tantra text. I am afraid Mr Iyengar’s yoga credentials are thus called into question, especially when we are getting into the world of the subtle body. I know that is iconoclastic and bound to ruffle feathers, but still.

Having exhausted the sources of Indian teachers on my bookshelf I began to search the online bookstores to see what else was available and I found that most of those who dare to write about the subject are westerners, nobody had easily sourced biographical information that would tell me about their lineage, those who carry Indian names I was not too sure were in fact Indian, and to cut the long story short, I feel that I reached a dead end.

A dead end to what? The answer is to the age-old quest for the one truth. The same impetus perhaps that urged my students to share their sources of knowledge. But the only real truth here is that there is not one version of it. This brings me to something I realized a long time ago, and I have written about it before. It is true of all humans perhaps, but especially true of westerners I think, that we believe there must be one authoritative version of the truth. But there isn’t, and we just have to accept the shades of grey we are presented with.

Other names for the same or similar mudrā and other variations

Kaṇiṣṭha prāna nādi mudrā – Forefingertip touches thumbtip, palms down

Śrāddha prāna kriyā mudrā - Forefingertip touches thumbtip, palms up

Jñāna mudra – Forefingertip touches thumbtip, but then with hand turned palm to body and held at the heart

Prajñā prāna kriyā mudrā – Tip of forefinger to the base of the thumb (if tip of forefinger is at the middle thumb joint it is Medhā prāna kriyā mudrā)

Vitarka Yoga Mudrā – Right forefingertip touches thumbtip, and the extended fingers point to the sky, palm facing out. The left hand lies in lap, fingers together, palm up.

Dharmacakra Mudrā – With both hands, forefingertip touches thumbtip, hands are held at heart level, left palm turns towards the heart, the right hand palm down with thumb and forefinger touching the left middle finger.

Do you know of any more?