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Urna

Spiral or circular dot placed on the forehead of Buddhist images

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As set out in the Lakkhana Sutta (Discourse on Marks), the ūrṇā is the thirty-first physical characteristic of the Buddha.

The urna is generally interpreted as a whorl of white hair which is a marks a Buddha as a great being (mahāpuruṣa). In the Mahayana Sutras, the Buddha is often depicted as shining light out of his urna to illuminate distant world systems. This light became an object of meditation in Mahayana Buddhism.

The urna is often seen on Buddhist sculptures from the 2nd century CE onwards. The urna remains part of standard Buddhist iconography today, often depicted as a gem placed slightly above and between the eyebrows of a Buddha or a bodhisattva.

More in Religion

PinyinRomanization scheme for Standard ChineseHindusAdherents of HinduismTraditional Chinese charactersStandardized set of Chinese charactersLiteral translationWord-for-word translation of a textReligionSocial-cultural systemTheologyStudy of the nature of deities and religious beliefs
Source and licence. Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Urna” (this version, 2026-02-23) by its contributors, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Lablypedia has left out its tables, references and most pictures, and linked it to other Lablypedia articles.