The whole thing is there, you see. The world of space and time, andmatter and energy, the world of creation and destruction, the world of

psychology…We (the West) don’t have anything remotelyapproaching such a comprehensive symbol, which is both cosmic and

psychological, and spiritual.

―Aldous Huxley, 1961

Dancing before a corpse wasn’t a new idea to me. Discovering agod in it is what left me stunned.

Decades of watching movies in multiple south Indian languageshad not prepared me for it. Neither had tripping on koothu, thedance form popular among cinema-lovers in that part of thecountry.

LORD OF THE COSMIC DANCE

How the Indian icon Nataraja danced his way from ancienthistory to modern physics

By Harish Pullanoor • December 18, 2019

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Breathing life into existence.

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Yet, here I was one September day in 2018, searching for hints oflord Nataraja, the fountainhead of most Indian dance forms, inthis most unruly of performances, Saavukoothu—“death dance.”

A street dance practiced by some Tamils when they accompanythe departed to the �nal resting place, Saavukoothu doesn’tdemand any of the re�nement of the more evolved classicaltraditions like Bharatanatyam or Kathak. There is only one rule:Let go completely.

I’d been reading up on Nataraja, the dancing version of the feralHindu god Shiva, for weeks. I hoped to trace his origins andevolution over a period of nearly �ve millennia, a search sparkedafter I was smitten by a famed sculpture in a Karnataka town.Tranquil-yet-ferocious according to Hindu mythology, Shiva issaid to reside at Mount Kailasa, now in the Tibetan Himalayas.The third pillar of the triumvirate that includes Brahma andVishnu, he is believed to be easy to please yet supremelydestructive.

My search took me to Chennai, capital of the southern Indianstate of Tamil Nadu and home to perhaps one of the greatestcollection of ancient Nataraja statues under one roof at theGovernment Museum in Egmore. One of the experts I spoke tohinted that apart from mainstream dance forms, even somethingas raw as Saavukoothu could be linked to Shiva. My curiositykindled, I began visiting the city’s crematoria, hoping to bumpinto its dancers or even witness it.

Chennai Savu kuthu Dance Video || Amazing ChChennai Savu kuthu Dance Video || Amazing Ch……

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There I met the wiry Rajkumar, head of a group of percussionartistes who lead Saavukoothu. For the 38-year-old, who uses onlyhis �rst name, playing the drums for this street dance has been afamily tradition, yet one he was too modest to hold forth on. “Mygrandpa could have given you more details. Unfortunately, he’s nomore. I am still a novice when it comes to the porul (crux) ofkoothu,” Rajkumar told me, directing me instead to Ragothaman, apriest at a local temple.

This priest, a trained engineer, told me the dance tradition issymbolic of Shiva’s primordial performance—the dead arebelieved to be �nally joining Koothu Perumal, lord of the dance inthe Tamil language, and another of Shiva’s epithets. Overcenturies, the matted-haired, animal-skin wearing, hash-smokerhas evolved into many things, including a hermaphrodite, formany people. This dweller of cremation grounds—he is oftenimagined covered in ash from funeral pyres—today can be foundeven on the grounds of the European Organization for NuclearResearch (CERN) campus in Switzerland, where he symbolises thehigh-energy collisions of particle physics in his Nataraja form.

In the most recognisable Nataraja version, he is seen dancing insheer abandon, hair locks wildly swaying and his limbs placed inbroad symmetry. He stands beautifully balanced on his right leg,trampling a tiny �gurine. This entire scene is framed by a circle of�ames.

In a furiously and incessantly transforming world, Nataraja—andthe message of his dance, “Keep calm and move on”—may beamong the few relevant spiritual anchors of our times.

The blissful Nataraja, dancing the world into being

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The origins of Nataraja, and of the Hindu god Shiva himself, liethousands of years ago. However, the form we recognise besttoday may have reached its apex around the 9th or 10th century insouthern India: The Ananda Tandava, or blissful dance.

In it, Shiva is in the Bhujangatrasita karana pose—literally“frightened by a snake“—with his left leg held across his body athip level, and every element contains a deep meaning. Roughly,Shiva is here at once seen creating and destroying existence;offering the escape hatch from this constant chaos; and, �nally,revealing the clue to that escape hatch, which is to subdueignorance.

The following are the �ve most important elements, indicatingthe Panchakritya, or �ve key acts of the Nataraja.

Srishti or creation: The Nataraja’s rear left arm carries thehourglass-shaped drum, damuru, the vibrations of which createthe universe. Some con�ate this with the Big Bang of cosmiccreation. (More on this later.)

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Let the universe boogie: Natesha, Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu, 11th century CE.

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Srishti: The primeval vibrations.

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Samhara or destruction: The raised, rear right-hand carries the�re that atrophies matter to a formless state, only forregeneration. In that sense, it is the �re of transformation, notdestruction. It implies constant change, echoing the Buddhistprecept of “There’s no being, only becoming.”       

Sthithi or maintenance/protection: The open palm of theforehand indicates an assurance: There is nothing to fear aboutconstant cosmic overhaul; change is normal and I’m here toprotect you.

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Samhara: Burn into nothingness.

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Stithi: Keep calm…

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Tirobhava or concealment: The hidden lower-left palm pointingdownwards says he’s the creator of maya, illusion or the veil ofignorance.

Anugraha or blessing or liberation: The raised left foot,combined with the closed hand, signi�es the option availablebefore the seeker: moksha or liberation from ignorance and, byimplication, from the cycle of birth and death.

A few more elements complement the idea of Panchakritya. Theseare:

Muyalaka or Apasmara: This dwarf demon at the Nataraja’s feetrepresents the evils of ignorance and ego, to be trampled upon ifone must rise to a higher plane of self-actualisation.

Circle of �re: The frame around Nataraja is maya, illusion, asexperienced through the cyclical phenomenon of birth & death.

Yet, for all the esoteric ideas attributed to him, the dancing lordlikely has more earthy origins.

The people’s yogi meets the warrior gods

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…and surrender yourself to me.

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Apasmara: Defeat your inner demons.

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The Indus Valley civilisation’s script has not been deciphered eventoday. A lot of the culture’s social, religious, economic aspects,thus, remain unlocked.

We do know, however, that the region of northwest India, in RiverIndus’s basin area, began urbanising around 3300 BCE and was indecline by 1500 BCE. Its natives had their own religious universe,though most of their gods, goddesses, and rituals are stillunknown. Yet, artefacts like seals, tablets, and terracotta �gurinesfound at its many settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa telltheir own tales.

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A sketch of an Indus Valley seal that depicts proto-Shiva in yogic posture, his penis erect.

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One such tablet, more than 4,000 years old, has as its centraltheme a man, his penis apparently erect (“ithyphallic”),meditating cross-legged in yogic posture. Sporting a double-horned headgear, he is surrounded by animals like tiger,rhinoceros, and elephant. This has led archaeologists to call himPasupati (In Sanskrit, pasu is animal, pati lord. However, Sanskritwasn’t native to Indus Valley and came much later).

This mysterious �gure is considered proto-Shiva.

A dancing god, too, may have existed in that culture, going by the“the dancing torso of Harappa” �gurine, also supposedly with anerect phallus. In her book, Siva: The Erotic Ascetic, historianWendy Doniger writes, “The raised linga (phallus) is the plasticexpression of the belief that love and death, ecstasy andasceticism, are basically related.”

Doniger also writes that Rig, the �rst of the four Vedas composedby nomadic tribes from the central Asian steppes that began�owing into the Indian subcontinent in the �rst millennium BCE,mentions yogic practices and phallic worship “as characteristic ofthe enemies…”

By 1500-500 BCE, the earlier civilisation was in disarray, givingway to the Vedic age. The nomadic tribes had their own religiousiconography, often aggressive and martial.

Let us, for the purpose of charting the possible path these newgods took towards popularity, imagine one such tribal settlement.The men have just returned from battle and are preparing tocelebrate victory. As the sun begins to set, a central camp�re is lit,around which the clan huddles up. Soma, their favourite ritualdrink, is generously served. Music, dance, and singing follow andthe best of performers take the lead.

At one moment, one among those dancers, his face wearingdramatic ritual makeup, strikes a ferocious warrior pose.Accentuated by the leaping camp�re �ames, the enrapturedshrieks, and overall excitement, it leaves a vivid impression. Somuch so that the imagery enters the tribe’s oral tradition: hymns,poetry, and chants.

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Somewhere in the region, the Vedas, ritual Hinduism’sfoundational texts in Sanskrit, are being composed right then. Inthese profound works, �ghting prowess, generosity, creativetalent, leadership qualities, and many more such qualities—allaspirational—get attributed to gods. Perhaps some of the talentedindividuals among the Vedic people themselves get elevated tothat status. In any case, there is no shortage of such icons. Many,including dancing ones like the Maruts, the Ashwins, and theAdityas, are already in vogue.

The favourite is probably Indra, who loosely corresponds to Zeus,the Greek god of thunder.

Vajra (thunder)-wielding Indra, “is the immortal dancer, who,enveloping the earth by his glory, bestows prosperity, as the abodeof all treasures,” the late art historian Calambur Sivaramamurtiwrote in his 1974 book Nataraja in Art, Thought and Literature. Thetraits and avatars attributed to him by the four Vedas and thePuranas, the richly intricate mythological stories composed a fewcenturies later, included:

As Purandara, the destroyer of forts or forti�ed towns

As Sahasraksha, the one with a thousand eyes all over hisbody (how he got them is a lustful tale of his philanderingways)

As practitioner of Indrajaala, the art of illusions

As destroyer of Vritra, the demon of darkness

As Pasupati, lord of all animals (livestock perhaps) or just king

As husband of Sachi, whose father he slays

As South Asia moved from the Vedic age to the Puranik (350-750CE), the con�uence of cultures brought together the twotributaries of Hinduism: Indus Valley’s “Pasupati” and the warriorgods of the steppe nomads.

This period of transition also marked the rise of Buddhism andJainism, which considerably obscures the churn from whichemerged the early form of modern Hinduism: Vedic deities like

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Indra, Agni, the god of �re and passion, and Rudra, the enigmaticmaster of death, progressively lose space to a new crop thatincludes Vishnu, Brahma, and, most importantly, Shiva.

By the Puranik age, Shiva is worshipped in three main forms, allderivatives of older icons:

Shiva, the meditating yogi: straight from Indus Valley. “Shiva’shorns are retained…in the form of the crescent or horned moonon his head and in his high-piled matted locks,” Doniger writes inher book. “From Indra, Shiva inherits his…adulterous character,from Agni the heat of asceticism and passion, and from Rudra he

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The Gudimallam Shiva, Andhra Pradesh. It is deemed the oldest known Hindu sculpture, and is stillworshipped. Notice the dwarf demon Apasmara at Shiva’s feet.

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takes a very common epithet (Rudra), as well as certain darkfeatures.” The third eye on Shiva’s forehead, according toSivaramamurti, is derived from Indra’s thousand eyes(Sahasraksha).

Linga or phallus: another feature seemingly carried over fromthe Indus Valley. Indeed, the Gudimallam linga of Chittoor districtin the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has an erectphallus on which an image of a standing Shiva is carved, aremarkable merging of Shiva’s aniconic and anthropomorphicforms. It is considered the earliest known Hindu sculpture (pdf),and is from around 2nd century BCE, and maybe the �rst tofeature the dwarf Apasmara.

Nataraja: Dance as part of a divine ritual may have its base in theIndus Valley. However, “mere dance conveys no meaning.Conveying meaning through dance required attributes such aspostures and gestures with symbolic elements,” says historianShrinivas Padigar, a scholar of ancient inscriptions and a retiredprofessor of Karnataka University in Dharwad. “In its ultimateversion, Nataraja’s relationship is with the concept of the ‘game orplay of Shiva’ throwing the web of illusion and making way for thesalvation of beings,” he says.

Poetry in stone

Stone and rock sculptures abruptly came into being in South Asiaduring the time of the �rst Indian empire under the Mauryas(322-185 BCE). The phenomenon was perhaps seeded by thisdynasty’s close ties to the Hellenistic and Persian worlds.

By the time of the Puranik or classical era, which blossomed underthe region’s �rst Hindu empire of the Guptas (3rd-6th centuriesCE), the dancing Shiva had begun to emerge in his most dramaticform. Not surprising, since “drama was the all-inclusiveperforming artform of classical India..,” historian Abraham Eralywrites in The First Spring: The Golden Age of India.

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Some of the most glorious Natarajas known were sculpted aroundthis time. This includes the famous ones at Ellora caves,Aurangabad, and Elephanta caves off the Mumbai coast (5th-9thcenturies).

About the Elephanta Nrittamurti, Sivaramamurti writes: “…(it) isprobably unsurpassed in the golden age of Indian art. For sheerrhythmic movement, delicacy of contour line and limpid grace inform and texture, there is nothing to approach this piece. The factis this is a highly developed sculptural version of the concept ofdance.”

The second half of the �rst millennium sees the scene shiftdecisively to southern India where two warring powers becomekey to the icon’s story: the Badami Chalukyas of the Deccan (543-757 CE) and the Pallavas (275-897 CE) of the Tamil country,already a bastion of Shiva worship deep south.

Around 642 CE, the Pallavan emperor Narasimhavarman hadsubdued his kingdom’s most important rival, the BadamiChalukyas of the Deccan (543-757 CE). The Chalukyas’ legendaryking, Pulakeshin, had once humiliated his father,Mahendravarman, in battle some 25 years earlier. Yet, havingtraveled over 600 kilometres northwest from his home,

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Nri�tamurti, Elephanta Caves, c. 6th century CE.

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Narasimhavarman—one imagines—is in awe of the temples andsculptures in the Chalukyan capital and other cities, mostly intoday’s northern Karnataka.

As such, Narasimhavarman simply couldn’t help borrowing ideasfrom the Chalukyas, and incorporating them in the completion ofhis father’s magni�cent shore city project, Mamallapuram orMahabalipuram, on the eastern coast of India.

“…culturally what all Narasimhavarman could carry back to berepeated at Mahabalipuram shows that the victor stooped togather blossoms of culture from the land of (the) vanquished…thefrequent inroads of the Chalukyas in Pallava territory and vice-versa have created a permanent record of cultural fusion as we seein sculpture in both areas,” Sivaramamurti writes in his 1955 bookRoyal Conquests and Cultural Migrations in South India and theDeccan.

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Particularly eye-catching was the roughly 4-feet tall, 18-armeddancing Shiva at the entrance of Cave 1 in Badami, the statue thatsparked my own obsession with this icon. Historian Charles Allenwrites that “it is generally considered to be the earliest portrayalof Shiva as Nataraja.” “A second Chalukyan incursion followed in744, so presumably it was at this time that the concept of ShivaNataraja migrated south to take root in Pallava country,” writeshistorian Charles Allen, in his book Coromondel: A Personal Historyof India.

However, others aren’t sure about this hypothesis. “The idea couldhave spread to the south…but I doubt Badami is where it began,”says Padigar.

Sivaramamurti, on the other hand, believes that another statue,now located in modern Andhra Pradesh’s Vijaywada, some 700kmeast of Badami, is “the earliest Nataraja �gure in the southern partof India.”

Whichever his pitstop, Nataraja quickly grew roots in the southand �ourished. So much so that he travelled with the many southIndian empires to regions beyond the seas in southeast Asia.

Some of his poses found in peninsular India are now codi�ed inclassical dance forms like Bharatanatyam, Kucchipudi, andMohiniyattam. “The variety of postures and hand gestures ofNataraja sculptures implies they were inspired by real dance,”Padigar says.

Did today’s Saavukoothu also have its roots in such culturalexchanges? “Earlier, fallen soldiers were accorded grand farewellsby the king’s military, like today’s 21-gun salute. That practice gotmore democratised and became Saavukoothu,” Ragothaman, theChennai priest, had said, explaining the more historical roots ofthe practice. According to Sivaramamurti, the Shiva-obsessedChalukyan soldiers insisted on the Nataraja being engraved ontheir tombstones “in the con�dence that they would be victorslike their lord.”

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The Badami Nataraja with 18 arms.

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For now, though, this connection is only speculative.

Soon, however, another profound transformation happened toNataraja in the south.

Chidambaram, the centre of “cosmicconsciousness”

Chidambaram is a dusty small town along the Tamil Nadu coast—yet some 20 million people visit or make a pilgrimage every yearto its tragically ill-maintained Shiva temple. Even overwhelmedby dust and cobwebs, the architectural gem carries centuries of

India through the ages of NatarajaKey civilisations and empires whose eras shaped the Indian icon

PallChalukya 6th to 8th century AD Chola 2nd century BC to 13th century AD PallChalukya 6th to 8th century AD Chola 2nd century BC to 13th century AD

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Chidambaram

Indus Valley 3300-1300 BCIndus Valley 3300-1300 BC Gupta Empire 3rd to 6th Gupta Empire 3rd to 6th

Harappa

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Patalip

Ellora CavElephanta

Quartz | qz.com | Sources: Samar Abbas, Byjus, Demis, Lumen, Woudloper

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aesthetic, philosophic, and spiritual history etched on its walls.Unlike most other Shiva temples in southern India, where he isworshipped in his linga form in the main sanctum, here Nataraja,too, is worshipped. Bronze is the medium here, believed to havebeen installed under the Chola dynasty, which revived as thePallavas weakened due to incessant wars with the Chalukyas.

Chidambaram derives its name from a combination of chit orconsciousness (in Sanskrit) and ambaram or cosmos. “In thatsense, this spot of Nataraja in this temple may be considered thecentre of cosmic consciousness,” says Devi Bala Dikshitar, one ofthe many priests of�ciating there.

The shift to the copper alloy helped perfect the image. “It seemsthat only with an appreciation of the greater tensile strength ofmetal, compared to wood, were the limbs, locks, and sash flaredout more… towards a circular shape,” says Sharada Srinivasan, anarcheologist who studies ancient metals at the National Instituteof Advanced Studies, a multidisciplinary centre located atBengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science campus.

The �ve-foot-something Nataraja idol here is awe-inspiring evenin the cold darkness of the sanctum. One can only imagine thetremendous impact it must have had on devotees the day it was�rst brought out in the open, to be taken in procession around thetemple, likely in 1054—a year that marked an awe-inspiring, realcosmic performance in the skies.

“It may have been linked to the observation of the Crab supernovaexplosion in 1054 which was also recorded by Chineseastronomers as being visible from July 4 for several days,” saysSrinivasan.

Other astronomical connections, too, emerge. For instance, amajor festival is held in Chidambaram at the time of the wintersolstice in December. During that time, the Orion constellation isseen in its zenith above the temple.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that some time in the mid-11thcentury the Chidambaram temple began celebrating the festivalduring which this particular Nataraja statue was taken out inprocession.You have 2 free stories remaining this month. ✕

In his book Coromondel, historian Allen writes that the awestruckdevotees would not have missed the link between this radical“cosmic-encompassing god and his royal representative on earth,”the Chola emperor.

Some nine centuries later, Shiva would emerge yet further fromthe temple, �nding new devotees in the world.

Nataraja’s global journey turns to the west

In the early part of the 20th century, Sri Lanka-born art historianand scholar Ananda Coomaraswamy made inroads into thewestern mind with his philosophical, spiritual, and cosmicinterpretations of the Nataraja. British enthusiasts and historianshad till then been dismissive about Indian art unless it wasin�uenced by Greek aesthetics, Allen writes. Coomaraswamy’sseminal 1912 essay, The Dance of Siva, later published in hisin�uential collection of essays on Indian art and culture, might bedeemed the launchpad of the Nataraja’s global journey.

Citing the many versions of Shiva’s dance, Coomaraswamy saidthe root idea behind all of them was the “manifestation of primalrhythmic energy.” He wrote:

According to archaeologist Srinivasan, Coomaraswamy’s aestheticsensibilities and his background as a scientist—he had studiedgeology and botany—both come through in his essay on Nataraja.His writings “seem to be echoed in TS Eliot’s famous poetic lines‘At the still point of the turning world…there the dance is…’Celebrated French sculptor August Rodin (1913) in his essay ‘LaDanse de Siva’ illustrated it with the same Nataraja bronze fromthe Government Museum, Chennai, as did Coomaraswamy,” shewrote in a 2016 paper.

In the night of Brahma, Nature is inert, and cannot dancetill Shiva wills it. He rises from His rapture, and dancingsends through inert matter pulsing waves of awakeningsound, and lo! matter also dances appearing as a gloryround about Him. Dancing He sustains its manifoldphenomena. In the fullness of time, still dancing, hedestroys all forms and names by �re and gives now rest.This is poetry; but none the less science.

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Born in what was then Ceylon to a Tamil father and an Englishmother, Coomaraswamy was well placed to interpret Nataraja fora western audience—he served as curator at the Boston Museumof Fine Arts from 1917 for three decades until his death, and wasone of the �rst to build a large collection of Indian artworks in theUS.

“Coomaraswamy made Indic art accessible and compelling tomany Americans and Europeans in his proli�c writings. His essayon the Nataraja may have been especially appealing because ofthe admirable character and profound ideas it ascribed to thatdeity, as well as the con�dence with which it �xed the meaning ofthis elaborate sculptural form,” notes Padma Kaimal, a professorof art history at Colgate University, New York, who nonethelesschallenges his seminal reading in her own work, citing thefragmentary nature of evidence surviving from medieval southernIndia among other reasons.

A philosopher-theologian as well, Coomaraswamy correspondedwith the likes of science-�ction writer Aldous Huxley, and mayperhaps have even inspired some of his work, which includedstudies of mysticism.

Huxley himself, as the introductory quote suggests, wasenamoured of Nataraja. “The great world of all-embracingmaterial world with its �ames, within this Shiva dances… He iseverywhere in the universe. This is his dance, the manifestation ofthe world called his Leela, his play. His sense of reign upon thejust and the unjust and he is not beyond good and evil, of course,it is all an immense manifestation of play,” he says in a 1961interview.

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Summer of ’69: Life, the universe, and Shiva

Fifty years ago, the full swing of the counter-culture movementgave an entire generation in the West a new high, helped by aheady concoction of eastern mysticism and psychedelic drugs.Many experienced epiphanous moments; for some, even life-changing ones. Fritjof Capra, the Austrian-born Americanphysicist, 80 years old now, was among them.

In an email to Quartz, he said:

More such experiences followed. Six years later, he summarisedhis �ndings in The Tao of Physics, published �rst in 1975. The bookwas received enthusiastically in the US and Europe and, at leastfor some, revolutionised both their spiritual and scienti�c planes.

A lot has changed in the �eld of particle physics since Capra’s“moment.” However, he says, nothing has “invalidated the twogrand themes of modern physics—the fundamental unity… andthe intrinsically dynamic nature of its natural phenomena.” Thatdynamic nature of physical reality is embodied in the myth of thedancing Shiva, he adds.

Before Albert Einstein propounded his theory of relativity in theearly 20th century, it was assumed that matter could ultimately bebroken down into indivisible indestructible parts. But whenindividual subatomic particles were smashed against each other in

In the Summer of 1969…one late afternoon, I was sittingby the ocean (in California)…when I suddenly becameaware of my whole environment as being engaged in agigantic cosmic dance. As a physicist, I knew that thesand, rocks, water, and air around me were made ofvibrating molecules and atoms, and that these consistedof particles that interacted with one another by creatingand destroying other particles…but until that moment Ihad only experienced it through diagrams andmathematical theories…I “saw” the atoms of theelements and those of my body participating in thiscosmic dance of energy. I felt its rhythm and I “heard” itssound; and at that moment I knew that this was theDance of Shiva.

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high-energy experiments, they didn’t scatter into smaller bits.Instead, they merely re-arranged themselves to form new particlesusing kinetic energy or the energy of motion: subatomicdynamism.

“At the subatomic level, all material particles interact with oneanother by emitting and reabsorbing (i.e., creating anddestroying) other particles. Modern physics shows us that everysubatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also isan energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction.For the modern physicist, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance ofsubatomic matter,” Capra said in his email.

This insight of Capra’s is what catapulted Nataraja into the statusof a global icon in the 1970s. But he credits his ability to makethese connections to his familiarity with works on mysticism byeastern and western scholars—like Coomaraswamy’s Shiva essay.“I immediately saw parallels to some ideas in quantum physics,”Capra says.

Astronomer Carl Sagan was another one fascinated by thesesynchronicities, writing in his book Cosmos, which became a 13-part miniseries with one episode shot in India, that he liked toimagine the Nataraja was “a kind of premonition of modernastronomical ideas.”

This idea of the eternal universal dancer has so deeply caught onamong physicists and cosmologists that in 1993, an abstractsculpture called Cosmic Dancer, was launched to the Russian Mirspace station. Asked about how his artwork, its designer ArthurWoods said:

…the (Nataraja) appears very angular yet aesthetic withthe four arms outstretched and the raised front leg. Thusmy sculpture, which is also very angular could be viewedas a symbolic abstraction of this �gure as it dances in thecosmic weightlessness of space…its form is always in atransient state of change…This and the fact that it is freeof terrestrial gravity, imparts a supranatural qualitynormally reserved for gods. Thus this qualitativerelationship to the god Shiva can be made.

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In 2004, the government of India gifted the EuropeanOrganization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, a 2-metre tallNataraja statue which now stands at the entrance of the facility inSwitzerland where the world’s most powerful particle accelerator,or the Hadron Collider, became operational in 2008. It hasprompted enough curiosity that the CERN website addresses itspresence:

The last dance

A few days after I �rst met Rajkumar, I got a call from him,inviting me to accompany him. The group had been called to aChennai neighbourhood where a young woman had tragically losther battle to leukemia and Rajkumar and his team were hired tolead the Saavukoothu procession.

After the exhausting session, during which around 10 adults and afew children danced for a few hours, we settled down for a cup oftea. “We have at least one body to accompany a day. Sometimes itis the elderly, sometimes little ones. All leaving behind a trail ofwails and tears,” Rajkumar said.

Is he too inured by now? “We have seen too many… we realise thisis an inevitable part of life,” he said, eyes glazing over. As we bidfarewell in the afternoon heat, a last question occurred to me: Byany chance, was there anyone named Shiva in his team?

Cosmic Dancer on the Mir SpaceStationfrom GreaterEarth

06:12

This deity was chosen by the Indian government becauseof a metaphor that was drawn between the cosmic danceof the Nataraj and the modern study of the “cosmicdance” of subatomic particles.

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Rajkumar gave me an amused look and replied:

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My Tamil name is Tondaimaan. Tondaimaan is Shiva.

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