Nataraja: Nataraja Reveals Cosmic Secrets  

By Sharda Srinivasan  

Ever since historian Ananda Coomaraswamy extolled the Nataraja bronze (dancing Shiva) from Tamil Nadu as ''poetry but nonetheless science’’, interpreting the Nataraja as the ''cosmic dance’’ of Shiva has been widely accepted.

Fritjof Capra catapulted Nataraja into a modern-day scientific icon when he euphorically stated in his cult book of 1974 The Tao of Physics that ''the dancing Shiva is the dancing universe, the ceaseless flow of energy going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into one another’’.

Shiva is referred to in many hymns as the brooding destructive Lord, dancing on the burning cremation grounds. How far then, did the creators of the Nataraja icon have a scientific comprehension?

It has been argued that the Nataraja metal icon can be viewed as a human or anthropomorphic representation of dynamic cosmic phenomena. Indeed, texts such as Naisadhiyacharita poetically describe the scattering of myriad stars in the sky by Shiva’s dance and splintering of rocks and crystals of Mount Kailash while the Vadnagar Prasasti speaks of Shiva playing newly created planets as if they were crystal balls.

A close examination of the symbolism evident in Chidambaram - the temple by the sea coast of Tamil Nadu dedicated to the worship of Nataraja - shows that the ancient seers’ revelations encompass concepts which are at once both mystical and tantalisingly scientific.

Chit is consciousness and ambaram refers to the cosmos and a literal translation would be the cosmic consciousness. The shrine to Nataraja at Chidambaram architecturally and conceptually links the cosmic realms and the inner consciousness through Shiva’s dance - the anandatandava or dance of bliss - where Shiva is described by the Tamil poet, Umapati of Chidambaram, as sachchidananda; that is, 'being, consciousness and bliss’.

The Chit Sabha or the golden-roofed 'Hall of Consciousness’ in the Chidambaram temple is the only shrine where the Nataraja metal icon is worshipped inside the innermost sanctum, the garbhagriha.

In all other Shiva temples it is the aniconic lingam that is worshipped in the garbhagriha whereas the Nataraja bronze is the utsava murti taken out in procession during festivals.

Shiva, as lingodbhavamurti, is the infinite cosmic pillar whose beginning and end could not be fathomed by either Vishnu or Brahma (somewhat like the mysterious pillar in the science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke, of which it was said ''my god, it’s full of stars!’’).

Instead, inside the Chit Sabha, by the side of the Nataraja bronze, is the enigmatic Chidambara Rahasyam or the secret revelation of Chidambaram, wherein Shiva is worshipped as the formless akasa lingam. It symbolises the sky, represented, aptly, by a curtained empty space.

The curtain represents the aroopa or formless manifestation of Sivakami or Shakti, the primordial feminine energy who inspires and witnesses Shiva’s cosmic dance.

This presages an intuitive understanding of concepts such as the wave-particle duality of quantum physics, with matter and energy being sides of the same coin.

The Tatvaryastava stotra, a hymn on Nataraja at Chidambaram, describes Shiva as sky-clad and Chidambaram as the sacred spot for the element, sky, where Shiva, as Lord of the universe, is both the universal dancer and the witness of his own dance, who creates and removes maya before finally ensuring emancipation.

Maya, represented by a black curtain behind Nataraja in the Chit Sabha, can be interpreted as a 'measure of reality’ with the Mayamata being an ancient text on architectural measurements.

Therefore, not only is Shiva’s dance cosmic, but Shiva can also be identified with the sentient universe, as well as with the consciousness within, which creates and destroys notions of reality.

These ideas hint at quantum mechanical paradoxes such as observer-created reality inherent to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. They also bring to mind the ideas of 'quantum consciousness’ and 'the infinite brain’ theorised by physicist Roger Penrose who strove for a grand unified theory of the forces of the universe encompassing quantum consciousness in his book The Emperor’s New Mind.

Indeed, the profound concepts symbolised by the Chidambaram temple are a humbling reminder of our sheer insignificance and transience in the gigantic universe that we, so often self-indulgently and haughtily, inhabit.

(The author is a Fellow at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore)

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See also: Nataraja, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)