Have you ever wondered why does the ninja before performing any kind of ninjutsu make many different symbols representing different animals and was this a real practice in Japanese Ninja and samurai ?
How come Kisimoto came with this concept to include it in his popular manga series.
So the simple answer to them is that no this was never actually done by real ninja and ninja did exists just not with magical power but they were skilled assassin in ancient Japan.
Kisimoto also was not the real progenitor of this practice he was the the first person to assossiated ninjutsu with these hands sign.
And he took this concept from Indian and Buddist Yogic practices.
Lets discuss this in detail below.
Mudra- Origin Behind Naruto Hand Signs
Mudra is a concept in Hindu yogic practices and also in buddism.
During meditation or doing a yoga poses some hand signs were told to do as different hand sign have different effect on your body some helping to increase focus, some increases blood flow ,etc.
These mudra are also a huge part of a dance form in India Bharatnatyam and in it is said that different hand signs gives out different kinds of energy some signs help mind relax, some make you angry and other can fill you with a sudden burst of energy।
And also the practice of Acupuncture in Chinese culture is linked to these hand signs.
All the blood vessels and nerves in our body are connected to our hand and there are some parts of body where there is more blood flow than others those places in our body according to Yoga are called chakra point.
Master Kisimoto also took the twelve zodiac animals for these hand signs because otherwise it would had more than 500 different hand sign if it was from Hinduism mudra.
How Mudra and Hand Sign Work in Naruto?
Now let’s us look at the question why was it necessary to have these hand signs be used before doing ninjutsu and why does some ninja don’t use it in the show and still are able to use ninjutsu.
The hand signs work in the similar way as the same way as yogic mudra which activates different emotions, different chakras in our body.
The hand signs are taught to students in the ninja academy which helps those who don’t know how to properly control there chakra.
Each ninjutsu requires very fixed amout of chakra provided to it and different hand signs help the learner’s and since every ninja had used them for many years in training it becomes there habit.
But sometimes some ninjutsu requires extreme amount of chakra control so even experts have to use hand sign.
But there are many genius in the Narutoverse like Hashirama whose chakra control is unmatachable so he don’t use hand signs.
Who was the first to use Hand Signs in Naruto?
Well there in both manga and anime, Kaguya Otsutsuki was the one who brought ninjutsu or chakra in the planet earth and his son the Sage Of Six Path Hagoromo Otsutsuki who used this chakra to invent nindo or ninjutsu.
But it was his elder son Indra who invented the hand seals to make it simpler to do ninjutsus.
They were designed to aid people in properly summoning and moulding chakra necessary to perform a technique.
All The 12 Basic Zodiac Hand Signs In Naruto
These basic hand seals were all taken from the Chinese zodiac.
- Saru, Monkey
- Tatsu*, Dragon
- Ne, Rat
- Tori, Bird
- Mi, Snake
- Ushi, Ox
- Inu, Dog
- Uma, Horse
- Tora, Tiger
- I, Boar
- Hitsuji, Ram
- U, Hare
Why Rasengan Or Rasenshuriken Don’t Require Hand Signs?
Well now we have discussed that it was not necessary to do hand signs to do ninjutsus for people who had good chakra control but we also know that Naruto in his Genin days had one of the worst chakra control.
But still he was able to do one of the most advanced jutsu the Rasengan how we will look at it now.
So the answer is simply because Rasengan was a jutsu which did needed a lot of chakra control as we saw during his training days with Jiraiya sensei.
He was not able to bring out the right amount of Chakra and the ballon which he was using to train keep bursting.
But he used his shadow clone to help in controllin – rotating the chakra when he himself was moulding and compressing it.
And this jutsu didn’t need chakra in fixed quantity because it’s kind of a bomb only wanted power or huge source of chakra.
There it was also named as tailed beast bomb rather than a jutsu.
