Apana Mudra is a mudra, a symbolic hand-gesture of the Indian religious traditions, known in Sanskrit as Apana Mudra and signifying the seal of elimination.
Form and meaning
In this seal the tips of the thumb, middle and ring fingers are joined. It is associated in yogic practice with the downward-clearing energy of the body and with cleansing.
Mudras appear across Hindu and Buddhist ritual, iconography, classical dance and yoga, where a fixed position of the hands carries a settled meaning or is held to direct attention and breath. The gesture is described here within those documented traditions.
Sources and caution
Apana Mudra, thumb touching middle and ring finger, is presented in the same modern finger-element system as Prana Mudra, here associated with the downward-moving apana vayu, one of the five vital airs (pranas) described in classical yogic physiology, a genuinely old concept the modern mudra scheme borrows and reapplies to a specific finger position. As with the other seals in this set, the concept of apana vayu itself has real classical grounding in Hatha yoga and Ayurvedic sources, but the specific instruction to form this exact finger seal to influence it is documented mainly in modern popularised mudra-therapy literature rather than in the older primary texts.