Abstract

Mudra is a domain of movement and it is considered as a prominent mode of communication in the dance and dramatic arts in India. Mudra as gestural practice is currently understood as inscriptive form that follows the linguistic parameters expressing symbolic meaning through systematically codified patterns of hand-gestures. This study will examine the ways in which gestural practice of the hand has been theorized in recent scholarship as a linguistic model of communication and raises concerns about the lack of understanding of its inherent kinetic properties involved in meaning making. The paper argues that mudra is essentially a form of movement and the deliverance of its meaning is embedded in the kinetic modalities of the hands. A mudra is a ‘thing’ composed of a number of spatiotemporal properties such as tempo, duration, rhythm, geometrical patterns of the hands and eye movements. Mudra being an ‘optical mechanism’ of the body sees things, narrates events, interprets their meaning, and experiences a range of emotions produced in the body. Mudra connects the subjective and objective worlds of performance through movements. The body remembers and repeats through the embodied thinking of the gestural practice of the hands.