The Earth Touching Buddha: Shakyamuni, Mara and the Bhumisparsha Mudra

One night at Bodh Gaya, a challenge over a seat, a witness who had no living voice, and the right hand that answered for him.

The earth touching Buddha is Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, shown at the moment before his awakening. He sits cross-legged under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. His left hand rests open in his lap. His right hand hangs over his right knee, and the fingertips touch the ground. In the story behind it, Mara, the lord of death and desire, has challenged his right to sit there, and the Buddha calls the earth itself to witness. The gesture is the bhumisparsha mudra, "earth-touching", and it is the most common hand position in seated images of Shakyamuni.

Who is Shakyamuni Buddha?

Śākyamuni means "Sage of the Shakyas", the clan he was born into, a people living below the Himalaya in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent. His personal name was Siddhartha, his clan name Gautama, and "Buddha" is a title, the Awakened One. Tibetans call him Shakya Thubpa, written shAkya thub pa; the Rigpa Shedra gives the fuller form sangs rgyas shAkya thub pa.

Buddhist tradition places his birth at Lumbini. He was raised at Kapilavastu, whose exact site is still unknown. Tradition also says he died at Kushinagar, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, at eighty.

When he lived is less certain than most people expect. Most historians in the early twentieth century used about 563 to 483 BCE. Sri Lankan chronicles give an earlier "long chronology", Indian sources a later "short" one. Since then many scholars have moved his death toward 400 BCE, and at a symposium on the question in 1988 most of the papers offered dates within twenty years of it. Britannica, carefully, puts his birth somewhere in the sixth to fourth century BCE.

The night under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya

The early accounts give the outline. After years with meditation teachers and a long period of severe fasting, he became so thin that his bones showed through his skin. In the Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN 36) he says that the fasting did not bring him what he was looking for, and he began to eat again. The later biographies name Sujata as the woman who brought him milk-rice. He sat down under a pipal, a sacred fig, Ficus religiosa. A vow that he would not get up until he had woken fully is recorded in the Chinese Madhyama Āgama and its parallels.

MN 36 divides the night itself into three watches. In the first, he remembered his former lives. In the second he saw, with what the texts call the divine eye, beings dying and being reborn according to what they had done. In the third, the defilements that drive that cycle were destroyed, and he understood the Four Noble Truths. The place is now Bodh Gaya in Bihar. The tree there today was planted by Alexander Cunningham in 1881, from a cutting of the tree at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka, which by tradition grew from a branch of the original.

The early account in MN 36 has no demon in it. Mara comes in later.

Mara's challenge and the earth as witness

The name Māra comes from the Sanskrit root mṛ, to die; it means "causing death", "killing". Buddhist teachers read him on several levels at once, and a later scheme lists four Maras: the afflicting emotions, death itself, the aggregates of conditioned existence, and a god of the desire realm who tried, in person, to stop the Buddha. The Samyutta Nikaya names his three daughters as Taṇhā, Arati and Rāga: craving, discontent and passion.

What the texts say

The earth witness is not in the Pali canon. It comes from the legendary biographies, the Mahāvastu, the Lalitavistara and the Nidānakathā, in which Mara tries everything. He sends his daughters to seduce, his armies of monsters to terrify, and finally he argues. The seat of awakening is his, he says, not this man's.

The fullest Pali telling is in the Nidānakathā, the introduction to the commentary on the Jataka tales. Mara claims the seat. The Bodhisattva has no living witness in this life to speak for him. So he names a deed from a past one: the seven-hundredfold great gift he gave when he was born as Vessantara. He stretches his hand toward the ground and asks the earth to witness it. In the translation quoted on SuttaCentral's forum, the great Earth answers in a voice that overwhelms Mara's hosts, "I am witness to thee of that!" The army breaks.

The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, summarized in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, gives the Sanskrit tradition's name for the goddess who appears: Sthāvarā. Dessi Vendova, the MFA Boston's Buddhism public scholar, points out that what the earth is called to witness is not the enlightenment, which has not happened yet, but his worthiness to sit on that seat, earned across many lives of giving.

That is why the gesture is so quiet. He does not raise a weapon or a voice. He lets the ground speak for what he has already done.

The earth goddess who wrings her hair

In mainland Southeast Asia the earth goddess became a figure of her own. In Thailand she is Phra Mae Thorani, from the Pali dharaṇī, ground; in Burma, Wathondara; in Khmer, Preah Thoroni or Neang Konghing. In the version known across the region, she rises from the ground as Mara attacks, confirms the Bodhisattva's right to the seat, and wrings out her long hair. The water in it is all the water he poured out over countless lives to seal his gifts, and it pours off her in a flood that sweeps Mara's army away. The Thai telling rests on the Paṭhamasambodhi.

The art historian ML Pattaratorn Chirapravati notes that the hair-wringing has no Indian precedent. In eastern Indian sculpture of the Pala and Sena periods, from the eighth to twelfth centuries, the earth goddess is small, at the base of the Buddha's throne, holding a water vessel. The earliest known hair-wringing images are Cambodian, from around the twelfth century. The earliest identified Thai one is a wooden relief at Wat Phra Rup in Suphanburi, 227 by 75 centimeters, which Pattaratorn dates to the fifteenth century.

In Bangkok, Queen Saovabha Phongsri commissioned a freestanding image of her as a public water shrine, an act of merit for her fiftieth birthday, opened on 27 December 1917, with water running from the goddess's hair. In Burma, many Buddhist ceremonies close with the water-pouring rite, yay zet cha: water poured drop by drop to share merit, with Wathondara called as witness, then poured onto the soil to return it to her.

Bhumisparsha mudra meaning: how to recognize the earth touching mudra

In Sanskrit, bhūmisparśa mudrā is the gesture of touching the earth. In Tibetan it is sa gnon gyi phyag rgya; in Chinese, chudi yin; in Japanese, sokujiin. To read it on a statue or a painting:

• The right hand hangs over the right knee, palm turned in toward the leg, fingers extended downward so the tips touch, or nearly touch, the ground or the lotus seat.
• The left hand rests in the lap, palm up, in the meditation gesture. In Tibetan painting it very often holds a begging bowl.
• The legs are folded in vajra posture, the right leg over the left, the soles showing.
• The setting, when there is one, is the Bodhi tree with its heart-shaped leaves, Mara's army in the air, and sometimes the earth goddess at the base.

One hand stays in meditation. The other reaches out of it, once, to touch the ground.

How the earth touching Buddha is painted in a Shakyamuni Buddha thangka

Himalayan Art Resources describes many Tibetan paintings of Shakyamuni in this form, and the same features come back again and again:

• Golden body. HAR describes the Buddha as golden in color in its records of Rubin paintings F1997.40.3, P1994.10.11 and P1994.14.1. The color follows the eleventh of the thirty-two marks of a great man in the Lakkhaṇa Sutta (DN 30): he is "golden in colour, has skin like gold".
• Ushnisha. The rise on the crown of the head, the thirty-second mark, "a protuberance on the head". In Tibetan painting it is topped with a gold ornament. The Asia Society reads it as a sign of the Buddha's expanded wisdom. Bhikkhu Anālayo has suggested it began as a way of showing the topknot of hair common among Indian holy men, though no text supports the idea directly and it remains speculation.
• Hair. Blue-black, in small tight curls, which the marks describe as "turning to the right".
• Urna. A dot between the eyebrows, from the thirty-first mark, a tuft of very white hair.
• Long earlobes, pierced. These are not one of the thirty-two marks; the closest is among the eighty minor ones. The Asia Society's explanation is that they recall the heavy earrings he wore as a prince and took off when he left the palace. The holes stayed.
• Three lines at the neck. HAR notes them in each of these descriptions.
• Robe. The patched robe of a monk, red and yellow or orange, sewn from strips, as HAR puts it, of discarded cloth. The right shoulder is bare, following monastic custom. A lower robe is tied with a sash.
• Bowl. In the left hand, a begging bowl. On the fifteenth-century Sakya painting F1996.1.9 it is black. On P1994.10.11 it is black trimmed in gold and filled with myrobalan fruit. The Rubin calls the bowl an attribute of monastics in all traditions.
• Seat. A lotus, often multicolored, sometimes with a moon disc, on a throne held up by lions or snow lions.
• Halo and aureole. A nimbus behind the head, a larger aureole behind the body. On F1997.40.3 and P1994.10.11 the aureole is dark green.
• Attendants. Most often his two chief disciples, Shariputra and Maudgalyayana, standing in monks' robes with staff and bowl.

Jeff Watt of HAR adds that most of the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks are never actually painted. The ones above are the ones painters chose to show, and they chose the same ones for centuries.

The throne back on P1994.14.1, seventeenth century, 81.28 by 48.26 centimeters, carries what HAR calls the Six Ornaments: elephant, snow lion, horse, a small boy, makara and naga, stacked up each side, with a garuda at the top gripping a snake. On P1994.10.11, nineteenth century, small scenes around him tell the twelve great deeds of his life.

Shakyamuni or Akshobhya?

The gesture belongs mostly, not entirely, to Shakyamuni. In the system of five buddhas, Akshobhya, blue, the buddha of the east, also touches the earth. The Met's gilt copper figure 1995.106, Tibet, eleventh to twelfth century, 58 centimeters tall, is catalogued as "Buddha Shakyamuni or Akshobhya" for exactly this reason. The right hand touches the earth, which points to either. The left hand presses thumb to middle finger, which the curators say is not a gesture of the historical Buddha, and so they lean toward Akshobhya. And the Rubin notes that in Tibetan art the earth-touching gesture sometimes appears in portraits of great teachers, to show their awakening as buddha-like.

In practice, a golden buddha in monk's robes, bare-headed, right hand down and a bowl in the left, is Shakyamuni. Blue skin, or the unusual left hand of the Met's figure, points to Akshobhya.

The Mahabodhi image

UNESCO, which inscribed the complex in 2002, dates the present brick temple at Bodh Gaya to the fifth or sixth century CE and describes it as about 50 meters high. Between the temple and the tree is the Vajrāsana, the Diamond Throne, a polished sandstone platform traditionally credited to Ashoka in the third century BCE to mark where the Buddha sat.

In the sanctum is a seated Buddha, gilded, over five feet high, touching the earth. The Gaya district administration describes it as black stone, painted gold, made under the Pala kings. Wikipedia's history of the temple records that this Pala-period image was put back in place in 1884, on a rebuilt plinth whose inscription records a rededication in the thirteenth century, and that it has since been repaired, painted and gilded.

Pilgrims carried the image home on small clay plaques. The British Museum's 1887,0717.81, a ninth-century terracotta found at Bodh Gaya, 15.3 centimeters high, shows the Buddha touching the earth inside the temple's arched sanctum under its spire, with branches of the Bodhi tree behind and small stupas around. Under the lotus throne, three lines set out the verse of dependent origination. The curator notes that making and enshrining such plaques was itself considered an act of merit. The Met has a sister piece, 33.50.10, also ninth century, Pala, 18 centimeters tall. LACMA's AC1997.72.1 is a Burmese earthenware tablet of about 1050 to 1100, 13.97 centimeters high, with the Buddha seated inside the temple between two stupas; the museum notes that before the eleventh century the shrine was copied as small models across much of Buddhist Asia, India and Tibet among them.

More than a thousand years ago someone pressed clay into a mold to make each of these, so a pilgrim could take the temple home. On every one, the right hand is on the knee.

Buddha hand gestures: five mudras compared

Five gestures cover most of what you will see on seated and standing buddhas. In the tantric system of five buddhas, each is also the sign of one of them.

The earth-touching and the teaching gestures mark two days in one life. At Bodh Gaya he touched the ground and woke. Later, at Sarnath, he began to explain what he had found to five old companions, the scene we followed in The Deer Who Listened. Between the two came the time after the awakening when the naga king Mucalinda sheltered him from a storm, told in our piece on the naga.

Earth-touching Buddhas worth seeing in museums

• British Museum 1880.11. Seventh century, probably Sarnath, fine pale beige sandstone, 50.8 centimeters. The Buddha sits on a stylized rock touching the earth, two demons hover above, Mara and a daughter stand beside him. The curator suggests the rocky ground under him may show Mara's followers tumbling as the earth shook at his summons, or the earth goddess coming up to bear witness.
• LACMA AC1996.26.1. Central Tibet, about the eleventh century, copper alloy with traces of paint and gilding, 46.36 centimeters. LACMA calls it one of the earliest and largest sculpted Shakyamunis from Central Tibet, made in the period of renewed contact with Pala India. Look at the hands and feet: fingernails, knuckles, lotus marks and lifelines on palms and soles.
• Rubin C2006.66.656. Tibet, fifteenth century, gilt copper alloy, 19.7 centimeters. Earth-touching right hand, begging bowl in the left.
• Rubin F1997.40.3. Tibet, seventeenth century, ground mineral pigment on cotton, 74.93 by 56.87 centimeters. Golden Shakyamuni in red and yellow patched robes on a snow lion throne, a golden bowl of jewels on a pink lotus in front of him, and at the bottom edge two donor figures, perhaps the parents of whoever paid for it, above a line of gold lettering.

Our Shakyamuni Buddha thangka

Our Shakyamuni Buddha Thangka shows him in the form described above. His body is golden. His right hand makes the earth-touching gesture, and his left holds a blue alms bowl. He wears a patched robe of red and gold and sits on a pink lotus. Behind his head is a green halo edged with gold beads, and behind his body a dark mandorla of rays, ringed in gold and set with red, blue and clear crystals. Below the seat is a red crystal ringed in gold beads. The ground is red, with red peonies, and it is shown in the Crimson Cloud brocade. Red-ground painting has its own history in Tibet, which we traced in What Is a Thangka?

What it is, exactly: the image is our own drawing, kept to the traditional iconometric proportions, and printed on heavy card. It is not hand-painted and it is not mineral pigment. It is then finished by hand at a temple, by elderly lay Buddhists who practice there. They set the glass crystals one by one and trace the outlines in gold glitter, about two days for each piece. The crystals are glass, not gems, and the glitter is not gilding. It is framed at 55 by 71 centimeters around an image of 40.2 by 56.2 centimeters, with a silk brocade frame-within-a-frame, a wood frame and an acrylic front, and the brocade comes in Night Sky, Ink & Gold, Crimson Cloud and Warm Sun. Part of every order goes to that temple, so every thangka is also an offering.

It is an image of Shakyamuni made with care; we make no claim that it will protect, bless or change anything for the person who hangs it. The rest of the thangkas are in the thangka collection.

Earth touching Buddha: questions

What does the earth touching Buddha mean?

It shows Shakyamuni under the Bodhi tree, just before his awakening. When Mara challenged his right to the seat, he touched the ground and called the earth to witness the merit of his past lives. The image stands for that moment of steadiness, and for the awakening that followed the same night.

Which hand touches the earth in the bhumisparsha mudra?

The right. It hangs over the right knee with the fingers pointing down. The left rests in the lap, palm up, often holding a bowl.

Who is Mara?

The figure in Buddhist tradition who stands for death and desire; the name means "causing death". In the biographies he attacks the Bodhisattva with armies, sends his daughters, and finally claims the seat of awakening for himself.

Who is the earth goddess in the story?

The Sanskrit tradition names her Sthāvarā. In Thailand she is Phra Mae Thorani, in Burma Wathondara, and in Southeast Asian tellings she wrings water from her hair to wash Mara's army away.

Is the earth-touching gesture only used for Shakyamuni?

Mostly. Akshobhya, the blue buddha of the east, makes it too, and Tibetan art sometimes gives it to portraits of great teachers. A golden buddha in monk's robes with a bowl in the left hand is Shakyamuni.

What is the difference between Shakyamuni and Amitabha in a thangka?

Shakyamuni is golden, with his right hand touching the earth. Amitabha is red, with both hands in his lap around the bowl. There is more in Amitabha Buddha: Meaning and Iconography.

Where did the Buddha attain enlightenment?

At Bodh Gaya in Bihar, India, under a pipal tree. The Mahabodhi Temple and a descendant of that tree stand there, with the Vajrasana, the Diamond Throne, between them.

The fingertips

Go back through the objects above: the Sarnath sandstone, the Tibetan copper with lifelines cut into its palms, the clay plaques from Bodh Gaya, the painted cotton with its donors at the edge. Mara's army and daughters come and go between them. The right hand does not change. It rests over the knee, the fingers reach down, and the ground is asked to speak for what has already been done.

May you have solid ground under you when you need it.

Shakyamuni Buddha Thangka · Thangka collection

More from the Journal: What Is a Thangka? · Amitabha Buddha · What Is a Stupa? · The Deer Who Listened

More thangka deities: Green Tara · Manjushri