What is "sembah"

Sembah is an Indonesian greeting and gesture as a way of demonstrating respect and reverence. While performing the sembah, the person clasped their palms together solemnly in a prayer-like fashion called suhun or susuhun in Javanese; or menyusun jari sepuluh ("to arrange the ten fingers") in Indonesian, and placed them in front of the chest, and moving the combined palms up to the chin, or all the way up until the thumbs touching the tip of the nose, while bowing slightly.

Sembah is endemic and prevalent in Indonesian regional cultures that shares dharmic heritage — such as Balinese, Javanese, and Sundanese, as the testament of Indonesian Hindu-Buddhist past. It is cognate to the Cambodian sampeah and Thai wai. All of these greetings are based on the Indian Añjali Mudrā used in namasté.