Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c74.s2.207

v2.c74.s2.207

Coomarswamy observes (cf. Coomarswamy and Gopalakrishnāyya—The Mirror of Gesture, page 24) "Such motions must have been elaborated and codified at a very early date, and later on we find that the art of silent communication by means of signs, which is in effect a 'deaf and dumb language', and just like the American Indian hand-language, was regularly regarded as one of the 'sixty-four arts' which every educated person should have knowledge of". "He refers to Jataka number 546 (J. Text, VI pp. 364) where Bodhisattva judges the suitability of a woman for being his wife by communicating to her through the medium of a particular hand sign (hattha-muddā); she understood it correctly and replied to him with another of her own. (J. N. Bannerjea, D.H. I. p. 247).