In Buddhist art and culture, the Urna (more correctly ūrṇā or ūrṇākośa (Pāli uṇṇa), and known as in
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
) is a
spiral
In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point.
Helices
Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:circular dot placed on the
forehead
In human anatomy, the forehead is an area of the head bounded by three features, two of the skull and one of the scalp. The top of the forehead is marked by the hairline, the edge of the area where hair on the scalp grows. The bottom of the fore ...
of Buddhist images as an auspicious mark. It symbolizes a third eye, which in turn symbolizes vision into the
divine world
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...
; a sort of ability to see past our mundane universe of
suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of a ...
hair
Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals.
The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and f ...
and be a mark or
sign
A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or me ...
of the Buddha as a mahāpuruṣa or great being. The device is often seen on sculptures from the 2nd century CE.
Gallery
File:Buddha Victoria & Albert.jpg, Buddha with urna depicted as a circular dot
File:Khmer Sacred Symbol, Om or Unalom.png, The
unalome
Yantra tattooing or Sak Yant ( th, สักยันต์ ) is a form of tattooing using Indian yantra designs. It consists of sacred geometrical, animal and deity designs accompanied by Pali phrases that are said to offer power, protection, fo ...
() yantra is a stylised representation of the urna.
Bindu (symbol)
''Bindu'' ( sa, बिंदु) is a Sanskrit word meaning "point", "drop" or "dot".
Philosophy
In Hindu metaphysics, Bindu is considered the point at which creation begins and may become unity. It is also described as "the sacred symbol of t ...
