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Hand positions, prayer beads and the marks a person wears or makes rather than displays. A mudra is a symbol a reader can look up from a photograph of a statue, and the three commonest — reassurance, meditation, teaching — are the ones met in every museum gallery. The bead strings do the same job in three traditions and are told apart by counting: 108 with a larger head bead is a japamala, five groups of ten with a pendant crucifix is a rosary, thirty-three with two dividers is a misbaha. The tilaka is the rare case of a mark on a person that a stranger can read: three horizontal lines are broadly Shaiva and a vertical U broadly Vaishnava.
A raised open palm facing outward, fingers up — the gesture of fearlessness.
Both hands cupped in the lap, right resting on left, thumb tips touching.
Thumb and forefinger touching to form a circle, other fingers extended.
A loop of prayer beads, conventionally 108 with a larger head bead.
A loop of beads in five groups of ten, with a short pendant tail ending in a crucifix.
A string of thirty-three or ninety-nine beads used for counting recitations.
A mark applied to the forehead, whose direction identifies the tradition.
A three-pronged spear head, the attribute of Shiva.
Nine interlocking triangles in a lotus ring, used as a focus for meditation.
Eight three-line trigrams arranged around a centre, in one of two standard orders.
A gate of two uprights and two crossbars, marking the entrance to a shrine.
A written Gurmukhi phrase used as an emblem, opening the Sikh scripture.
A composite emblem shaped like a standing figure, containing a swastika, a raised palm and a crescent.
A raised open palm with a wheel at its centre, bearing the word ahimsa.
A seven-branched lampstand, distinct from the nine-branched hanukkiah.
Two Hebrew letters read as the word for 'living', worn as a pendant.