Nataraja (नटराज), the lord of dancers, is Shiva in the act of the tāṇḍava — the cosmic dance through which the universe is made, sustained and dissolved. The image reached its definitive form in the bronzes of the Chola period in Tamil Nadu, and it has since become perhaps the most widely recognised icon in Indian art: the four-armed god dancing within a ring of flames, one foot pressing down a dwarf, the other lifted in release.
Reading the image
Every element of the icon is doctrinal. The upper right hand holds the ḍamaru, the hourglass drum whose beat begins creation; the upper left carries fire, the instrument of dissolution. The lower right hand is raised in abhaya, the gesture of reassurance; the lower left sweeps across the body toward the lifted foot, the refuge of the devotee. Beneath the planted foot lies Apasmara, the dwarf of forgetfulness and ignorance. Shaiva commentators read the whole as the five acts of God: creation, preservation, destruction, concealment and grace, performed simultaneously and without effort — the god's face remains serene at the centre of the whirl.
Chidambaram
The dance is localised above all at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, where tradition holds that Shiva performed the ānanda tāṇḍava, the dance of bliss, and where the temple enshrines Nataraja as its principal deity — unusually, a processional bronze rather than a lingam holds the heart of the cult. Tamil Shaiva poetry returns constantly to the dancer of Chidambaram, and the temple's sanctum is associated with the chidambara rahasya, the secret that the god's ultimate form is empty space.
Legacy
The Chola bronzes of Nataraja, produced from around the tenth century, are counted among the summits of world sculpture, and Ananda Coomaraswamy's essay The Dance of Shiva fixed the image in the modern imagination as a symbol of cosmic rhythm. The figure now stands in museums and physics institutes alike, but its home remains the temple procession, where the dancing god is carried out among his devotees as he has been for a thousand years.
Further reading
- Bhattacharyya, N. N. History of the Sakta Religion. Munshiram Manoharlal, 1996
- Coburn, Thomas B. Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devi-Mahatmya. State University of New York Press, 1991
- Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine. University of California Press, 1986
- Kinsley, David. Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas. University of California Press, 1997
- Sircar, D. C. The Sakta Pithas. Motilal Banarsidass, 1973
See also
This entry was last revised on 31 July 2026.