AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh 2 www.allatra.org

AllatRa by Anastasia Novykh
social inequality such as rich people’s rings of “honorary citizens”. Generally speaking,
everything’s as usual: human pride arises from scratch.
Anastasia: I would like to address another quite interesting issue due to the topic
discussed on the ring finger and rings. Once you told where “the God’s perst” (“the
finger of God”) expression entailing formation of the “seal ring” idea had originated
from.
Rigden: Yes, in the Old Slavonic language, the word “perst” meant “finger”. At that, in
ancient times “perst” meant exactly the ring finger of the right hand. Some nations, e.g.
Kazakhs, still have a custom associated with an ancient popular belief that neonates
should be first given not the mother’s breast to suck, but the ring finger in order to
ensure the baby grow into a good, kind and spiritual person. This is exactly an echo of
the mentioned knowledge about the ring finger conventional symbolism, although in a
human interpretation. Nowadays, ring wearing is a mere fashion and tradition, e.g.
putting wedding rings on ring fingers of the right or left hand (every country has its own
way). Nonetheless, echoes of the knowledge once possessed by people still can be
found. For instance, in Orthodoxy, when a couple is getting married in church, rings put
by newlyweds on ring fingers of their right hands still denote the sign of eternity and
indissolubility of the crown with the spiritual world.
Anastasia: The majority of people do not even think about why there are various
traditions they follow, and where the root of such traditions growth from. Yet, once you
understand such details, other information becomes more understandable to you, too,
like the meaning of the ring finger junction with another finger as depicted on deity
sculptures or images, in particular when this symbolically indicates meditative
techniques.
Rigden: As for the fingers position… While the ring finger by meditative functions used
to symbolize spiritual vision, knowledge, and super abilities, the thumb symbolized the
person’s energy potential. Specifically, the thumb indicated that in a meditation a person
was using the chakran located approximately in the lower abdomen, inside the pelvic
girdle, between the tailbone and the pubic symphysis. For convenience, this chakran was
externally depicted in the perineal area on schemes of a human being. But this is only a
conventional representation, since the chakran is located not in a person’s physical body,
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