| Abstract: |
Images of seated Buddhas with legs pendant (Skt. <i>bhadrāsana</i>) were frequently found all over Buddhist Asia during the 1st millennium CE. Bhadrāsana Buddha images chiefly display two types of hand gestures, the teaching gesture with one hand (<i>vitarkamudrā</i>) or some variant gestures of Turning the Wheel of the Law with both hands (<i>dharmacakramudrā</i> or <i>dharmacakrapra-vartanamudrā</i>). The spread of such Buddha images with one <i>mudrā</i> or another is uneven in Buddhist Asia. While the combination of this posture with the <i>vitarkamudrā</i> is found regularly in mainland and maritime Southeast Asia as well as in Central and East Asia, it is rather exceptional in the Indian subcontinent [Fig. 11.1]. Conversely, the combination with the <i>dharmacakramudrā</i> occurs, mostly, in the North of South Asia as well as in maritime Southeast Asia. It is not found in Mainland Southeast Asia or in East Asia.
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