The Story of Nataraja

In the form of Nataraja, Lord Shiva dances the Ananda Tandava, the dance of bliss, within a great ring of fire that is the cosmos itself. Each gesture is a cosmic act: the drum in his upper right hand sounds the rhythm of creation, while the flame in his upper left is dissolution.

His lower right hand is raised in abhaya mudra, granting fearlessness to all beings, and his lower left points to his raised foot, the refuge of the soul. Beneath his other foot he presses down Apasmara, the demon of ignorance and forgetfulness.

So the dance holds the whole cycle of existence at once, creation and preservation, dissolution, concealment and grace, turning ceaselessly within the still centre of the Lord.

The Meaning

Nataraja is the most profound image of Shiva, the divine dancer in whom the universe arises, is sustained, and returns. The dance teaches that change and stillness are one, that even destruction is a form of grace, and that the soul finds refuge at the Lord’s feet. To behold Nataraja is to glimpse the rhythm at the heart of all things.