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The Dance of Shiva

(Analysis of Essay by Ananda Coomaraswamy)
Arjun Prakash
arjunprakash.ny8@gmail.com

Introduction:

Dance of Shiva is an insight into the Nataraja posture of Lord Shiva who is considered

as the King of Dancers in Indian Culture. Coomaraswamy says that the dance of Shiva is the

cosmic representation of all forms of energy and movements in nature and cosmos.

About the Author:

Anand Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was one of the great art historians of the

twentieth century whose multifaceted writings deal with

Visual art

Aesthetics

Literature and language

Folklore

Mythology

Religion and

Metaphysics

Coomaraswamy is considered as a leading member of Traditionalist school of

comparative religious thought. In 1906 Coomaraswamy founded “The Ceylon Social Reform

Society” ; addressed itself to the preservation and revival of not only of traditional arts and

crafts but also of social values and customs which had helped to shape them.
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In India Coomaraswamy formed a close relationship with Tagore family and was

involved in both Literary Renaissance and Swadeshi Movement. All the while he was in

subcontinent he was:

Researching the past

Investigating arts and crafts

Uncovering neglected and forgotten schools of religious and court art.

Writing scholarly and popular works

Lecturing and

Organising bodies such as Ceylon Social Reform Society

Coomaraswamy picked up a catch phrase of Ruskin, which he has to mobilize again

and again in his own writings, “industry without art is brutality.”

Analysis

The story of Shiva who dances and tamers the tiger and wear its skin as if it is silk

cloth, wears the serpent as if it is a garland, and defeated the malignant dwarf , Muyalaka and

continued to dance is being retold by Coomaraswamy. This dance of Shiva is the motif of the

south Indian copper images of „Sri Nataraja‟, The Lord of Dance.

According to the latest subatomic research the interaction of subatomic particles gives

rise to the stable structures, which build-up the material world, which again do not remain

static but oscillate in rhythmic movements. Modern Physics has therefore shown as that the

whole3 universe is thus engaged in endless motion and activity in a continual cosmic dance

of energy.

The metaphor of cosmic dance has found its most profound and beautiful expression in

Hinduism in the image of Dancing god, Shiva – King of Dancers.

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According to the Hindu belief, life is a part of a great rhythmic process of creation and

destruction, of death and rebirth. Shiva‟s dance symbolizes this eternal life-death rhythm

which goes on endless cycles. Coomaraswamy says, “In the fullness of time, still dancing. He

destroys all forms and names by fire and gives new rest. This is poetry, but none the less

science.”

The dance if Shiva symbolizes not only the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction,

but also the daily rhythm which is seen in Indian mysticism as basis of all existence. At the

same time Shiva reminds us that the manifold forms in the world are Maya- not fundamental,

but illusory and ever-changing – as it keeps creating and dissolving them in the ceaseless

flow of his dance.

For modern physicists, Shiva‟s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. The metaphor

of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics. Dance,

whether cosmic dance of Shiva or human dance, if we understand them righty, we see they

lead to freedom. Shiva‟s dance lies in his own nature, all his gestures are his own,

spontaneous and purposeless- for his being is beyond the realm of purposes.

Dance of Shiva is identified with the Panchakshara or five syllables of the prayer Si-

va-ya-na-ma, „Hail to Shiva‟.

Conclusion

Coomaraswamy points out that, the eternal significance of Shiva‟s dance is threefold:

Firstly: It is the image of his rhythmic play as the source of all movements within the

cosmos.

Secondly: The purpose of his dance is to release the countless souls of men from the

snare of illusion.

Thirdly: The place of dance, Chidambaram, the centre of Universe, is within the heart.
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