Deities
Hindu Deities
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Nataraja is Shiva as lord of the dance, the standing bronze form developed in the Tamil south under the Cholas and now the most widely reproduced image of any Hindu deity. He dances the ananda tandava inside a ring of fire, four-armed: one hand beats the drum whose sound is creation, one holds fire, one gestures do not fear, one points to the raised foot, and the right foot presses down the dwarf Apasmara, who is forgetfulness. The dance is read as the five acts of creation, maintenance, destruction, concealment and grace. Chidambaram is its principal temple. Reading the ring of fire as an image of subatomic process is a twentieth-century gloss brought to the icon from outside it.
Facts
History
Historical NoteThe Chola bronze form was cast using the lost wax process, and the finest examples, some over a metre tall, are hollow cast in a technique precise enough that the finished image could be dressed, garlanded and carried in procession. 2 Attestation
Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 3 Cult
Principal Cult CentreChidambaram is his principal temple, where the ananda tandava is enshrined as the image of Shiva's cosmic dance. 1 Attributes and IconographyFour-armed: one hand beats the drum whose sound is creation, one holds fire, one gestures do not fear, one points to the raised foot, and the right foot presses down the dwarf Apasmara, forgetfulness. 1 Worship and PracticeThe Chidambaram temple in Tamil Nadu, Nataraja's principal shrine, is unusual among major Hindu temples for enshrining an empty space, called the Chidambara Rahasyam, alongside the bronze image, understood by devotees as representing the formless aspect of the divine. 2 Origins
Origin of the NameNataraja's name is a Sanskrit compound of nata, dance, and raja, king, so the title itself proclaims Shiva king of dancers, an epithet already carried by the medieval Chola temple hymns composed for the Chidambaram shrine. 1 Status
Scholarly Standing DetailThe art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy's 1918 essay The Dance of Shiva did much to popularize Nataraja in the West as a philosophical symbol, an association echoed nearly a century later when the Indian government gifted a large Nataraja statue to CERN, unveiled in 2004 outside its Geneva headquarters as an emblem reconciling the image's cosmic dance with the physics of particle collisions. 2 Sources
Textual NoteThe Tevaram and other Tamil Shaiva devotional hymns of the medieval Nayanars celebrate Shiva's dance at Chidambaram directly, providing textual attestation of the site's association with the dancing form of the god centuries before the classical bronze Nataraja icon reached its familiar standardized shape. 2 Function
Domain / Function Domain / Function Domain / Function Domain / FunctionDestruction and dissolution 1 Attributions
Mythic AssociationNataraja's dance, the Anandatandava, is described in Shaiva tradition as the rhythm underlying the cosmos itself, its steps enacting creation, preservation, destruction, concealment and release in an unending cycle. 2 Position Profile
Key TextIn the classic Nataraja bronze form, Shiva's right foot tramples the dwarf demon Apasmara, personifying ignorance and forgetfulness, while his dance is framed by a ring of fire, an iconographic program most fully developed by medieval Chola dynasty bronze casters in Tamil Nadu. 2 Learn More
The Lord of the Dance
Nataraja is Shiva as the Lord of the Dance, the standing bronze form developed in the Tamil south under the Chola dynasty from around the tenth century and now perhaps the single most widely reproduced image of any Hindu deity. Shiva dances the ananda tandava, the dance of bliss, within a ring of flame, poised on one leg with the other lifted across his body, his matted locks flying out on either side. Every element carries meaning: the upper right hand holds the damaru, the small drum whose beat is the pulse of creation and of time itself; the upper left holds agni, the fire of destruction that will consume the world; the lower right hand is raised in the gesture of abhaya, fearlessness and protection; and the lower left points across to the raised foot, the refuge of release.
Nataraja's home shrine is the Thillai Nataraja temple at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, where the bronze form is worshipped as performing the ananda tandava in what temple theology calls the exact centre of the universe; the medieval Tamil text Unmai Vilakkam sets out the dance's five cosmic activities of creation, preservation, destruction, concealment and release. The image reached a wide audience outside India largely through the art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy's 1918 essay The Dance of Shiva, which did much to establish Nataraja in Western eyes as a central symbol of Hindu philosophy and art.
The Dwarf Underfoot, and the Ring of Fire
Beneath Shiva's planted foot lies a small figure, the dwarf Apasmara (also called Muyalaka), who personifies ignorance, forgetfulness and the delusion that binds beings to suffering; the god dances upon him, holding down the force of ignorance without destroying it, since ignorance too has its place in the ordered whole. The whole figure is enclosed in a circle of fire, the prabhamandala, understood as the cosmos itself, the boundless cycle of creation and dissolution through which the dance moves.
The image thus compresses a complete cosmology into a single form: the same god, in one dance, creates with his drum, sustains with his gesture of protection, destroys with his fire, veils reality by treading on the dwarf, and offers liberation with his raised foot, the five acts that Shaiva theology assigns to Shiva. The great temple of Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu is the home of Nataraja, where the dancing Shiva is the central deity. Widely admired as one of the supreme achievements of Indian art, the bronze Nataraja is above all, for those who worship him, a vision of the divine activity that upholds and dissolves the universe.
Correspondences & Relations
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Nataraja directly: "and condition for the Ardhanarishvara, Nataraja and Gangadhara panels."
This source names Nataraja directly: "its major relief panels, including the Nataraja, Ardhanarishvara and Gangadhara panels, in terms consistent with the Wikipedia account but written independently of it."
This source names Nataraja directly: "This bronze sculpture depicts Shiva as Nataraja, the Lord of Dance, performing the anandatandava, the dance of bliss, one of the most recognized images of Hindu sacred art and the form under which..."
Depicted In
Held to Be the Same As
Shiva, Deities Nataraja is Shiva as lord of the dance, the standing bronze form developed in the Tamil south under the Cholas.
Worshipped In
The Nataraja image was developed in the Tamil south under the Chola dynasty and remains the most widely reproduced image of any Hindu deity.
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008s.v. NatarajaView the Source 2. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization
Heinrich Zimmer, Princeton University Press, 1972On the dance and the five actsQuote, On the dance and the five acts
Zimmer sets out the reading of the ananda tandava as creation, maintenance, destruction, concealment and grace, with the drum, the fire, the gesture of reassurance and the dwarf Apasmara underfoot.
3. An Introduction to Hinduism
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Shiva; Nataraja, the ananda tandava, and the five actsView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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