Lord Buddha, the founder of the Buddhism and one of the few great universal teachers the history has ever produced, is seated with his legs crossing each other and feet and palms turned upwards. In spiritual iconography, this sitting posture has been conventionalised as padmasana. In Buddhist and Jain iconography padmasana corresponds to meditation, as the padmasana images of Lord Buddha, and those of Jain Tirthankaras, essentially represent them as absorbed in meditation. In Jain iconography, the meditating Tirthankaras are rendered also in khadagasana, standing posture, but standing images of Buddha, though they have meditative demeanour, are not seen as revealing meditation. The oval shaped lotus base further enhances the effect that padmasana posture creates.
This padmasana image, facial demeanour and half-shut eyes, represent him as deeply engrossed in inner dialogue seeking answers to questions relating self and cosmos. In Buddhist iconographic classification, this posture of Buddha in dhyana, meditation, is seen as the Dhyani Buddha, and comprises one of the essential five classes of the Buddha's sanctum images, the other ones being Buddha in bhumisparsha-mudra, in Dharmapravartana-mudra, as the universal teacher and the Buddha's nirvana. Buddha in meditation depicts his pre-Enlightenment stage, when seated in padmasana under a Banyan tree near village Uruvila around river Nairanjana he descended deep within him and discovered the light and was the Enlightened One. The first three of these postures are seated, fourth standing and fifth reclining.
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