Myth Monday* - Notes on the Shiva Nataraja

This photo is called "Lord of the Dance" because the sculpture shows the Hindu god Lord Shiva in his dancing aspect (Shiva Nataraja). Padma Kaimal says the Shiva Nataraja in the ring of fire is very familiar to Westerners because of an influential 20th century essay by A. Coomaraswamy, which led to the proliferation of such figures, since any collection of Indian art is now considered incomplete without one. You can even buy one online. Pratapaditya Pal adds that renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was inspired by Shiva Nataraja.

The form of this type of statue of the dancing Shiva is late, from the Chola Dynasty (12-13th centuries A.D.) for whom the Shiva Nataraja was a family deity. Earlier representations of a dancing Shiva show Shiva dancing on a platform, instead of a dwarf, and sometimes with 16 hands, instead of 4. Pal says that in a depiction of a contemplative Shiva sitting Buddha-like beneath a tree, the dwarf (Shiva-gana) beneath the god's foot represents ignorance. The symbolism of the dwarf may be the same in Shiva Nataraja sculptures. Kaimal, however, says the fat dwarf serves as a visual foil for the tall lean figure of the god, and some of the dwarf figures seem to be supports (literally and figuratively) rather than opponents of Shiva.

Jadzia Donatowicz says Shiva's limbs and movements represent Shiva's acts of creation, maintenance, dissolution, veiling-unveiling, and dissolution. The dance is a dance of repeated creation and destruction, the cosmic cycle. Kaimal thinks the raised and crossed leg is in a position known as bhujangatrasit "frightened by a snake" even though the snake is not (no longer) present. The angles of the limbs reflect a perfection humans can't achieve. The drum in his hand could have been used to beat a dance rhythm. Kaimal points out that among the radiating locks of hair and flower garlands sits a half piscine female who is a personification of the Ganges.

Read more about the dancing aspect of the central Hindu god Shiva:

• "Shiva Nataraja: Shifting Meanings of an Icon"
  Padma Kaimal
  The Art Bulletin (1999), pp. 390-419.
  
• "Symbolism of the Cosmic Dance of Shiva in the South-Indian Temple Dance Tradition"
  Jadzia Donatowicz
  Leonardo (1996), pp. 156-157.
  
• "Sculptures from South India in The Art Institute of Chicago"
  Pratapaditya Pal
  Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies (1996) pp. 20-35+94.
  
• Coomaraswamy, Ananda K., "The Dance of Shiva" (1918), in The Dance of Shiva: Fourteen Indian Essays, 2d ed. (Munshiram Manoharlal, 1970), 83-95. Dehejia, Vidya, Art of the Imperial Cholas (New York: Columbia University Press.
  
• Shiva Nataraja from About.com's Guide to Hinduism
  

* There is already much material on this site on the topic of mythology (especially, Gods and Goddesses and The Stories of the Ancient Greeks). In Myth Mondays I attempt to bring up an element of mythology that is either timely or less well known.