Lit. "welcoming mudra." A mudra or hand gesture *in 印 in which the forefinger, middle finger or occasionally third finger is joined to the thumb; it is formed with both hands, with the right hand raised and the left hand pendent. Its name derives from the fact that it was believed to be the mudra displayed by *Amida 阿弥陀 when he came to welcome the dead into his Pure Land jōdo 浄土 called Utmost Bliss gokuraku 極楽 (Sk: sukhavati). Hence this name is not applied to similar mudras used with deities other than Amida.
With the growing popularity of the Pure Land faith in Japan during the late-Heian and Kamakura periods, great numbers of images of Amida displaying this raigō-in were produced, and many of them are still extant. In particular, the standing images of Amida with this mudra by Kaikei 快慶 (late 12th to early 13th century) later came to be looked upon as a standard model for standing images. The systematization of the various forms of the raigō-in during the Edo period resulted in the following three types from among the mudras of the nine grades of Amida *Amida kubon-in 阿弥陀九品印: mudra of the upper grade: lower birth jōbon geshō-in 上品下生印 (thumb and forefinger joined); mudra of the middle grade: lower birth chūbon geshō-in 中品下生印 (thumb and middle finger joined); and mudra of the lower grade, lower birth gebon geshō-in 下品下生印 (thumb and third finger joined). It is, however, anachronous to apply these terms to images antedating the Edo period. In addition to the raigō-in with the right hand raised and the left hand pendent, there are also examples of the reverse form (e.g., central image of the Amida sanzonzō 阿弥陀三尊像 at Jōdoji 浄土寺 in Hyōgo Prefecture), and this is known as the reverse raigō, gyakuraigō 逆来迎 or sakate raigō 逆手来迎. This form developed under the influence of Chinese images of Amida dating from the Song dynasty, and examples are found in Japan from the Kamakura period onwards. In images of Amida in China and along the Silk Road, on the other hand, it is this reverse form that predominates, and from that point of view it is rather the Japanese raigō-in that ought to be termed reverse. But these terms have already won wide currency in Japan.