Nataraja
நடராஜர் नटराज
Also Sabhapati, Thillai Koothan, Adavallan, Kunchitanghri.
Saiva
Who this is
Nataraja is Siva dancing, and the Tamil Saiva tradition treats the bronze not as a picture of a god but as a diagram of what the universe is doing. The five acts are in it at once: creation in the drum, protection in the open palm, destruction in the fire, concealment in the foot on the dwarf, and release in the raised foot. Chidambaram is his hall, and the sanctum beside him holds nothing at all, the akasa linga, which the tradition calls the Chidambara Rahasyam, the secret of Chidambaram: there is nothing there to see, and that is the teaching.
How to recognise them
Four armed, dancing in a ring of fire, the right foot on the dwarf Apasmara who is forgetfulness, the left foot raised. The upper right hand holds the damaru, the upper left the flame, the lower right is raised in abhaya and the lower left points to the raised foot. Matted hair flying out with the Ganga and a crescent in it. The ring of fire is the universe and the still face at its centre is deliberate.
Family and companions
Siva, with Sivakami, Parvati, standing beside him in the Chidambaram sanctum. The dwarf under the foot is not a demon but forgetfulness, and is not killed, only stood upon. Patanjali and Vyaghrapada are the two sages the tradition says watched the dance.
How they are worshipped
The six abhishekams; Thiruvathirai in Margazhi; Aani Uthiram; Pradosham.
Six great abhishekams in the year, of which Aani Thirumanjanam and Margazhi Thiruvathirai are the chief, held in the small hours with the image brought out to the hall. The Thiruvasagam and the Thevaram are sung rather than Sanskrit recited. The Dikshitars of Chidambaram keep the worship and their customs are their own.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The dance in the forest
The sages of the Daruka forest held that rites alone were enough and that no god was needed. Siva came among them as a beggar and Vishnu as Mohini, and the sages’ wives followed the beggar. The sages, enraged, raised a sacrificial fire and sent out of it a tiger, a serpent and a dwarf. He took the tiger’s skin for a garment, the serpent for an ornament and stood on the dwarf, and began to dance. The sages understood. The telling is used to argue that ritual without recognition is empty, which is a strange thing for a priestly tradition to keep saying and it keeps saying it.
The contest with Kali
At Thiruvalangadu, Kali held the ground and would not give way, so the two danced against each other and she matched him step for step. He then raised his foot to his ear in the urdhva tandava, which modesty would not let her copy, and she conceded. The story is told plainly in some Tamil temples and uneasily in others, and some tellings have her concede the hall but keep the ground outside it, which is why the Amman shrine at many Siva temples faces its own way and has its own flagstaff.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- Chidambaram is the hall and the bronze is the Chola achievement; five sabhas across the Tamil country keep five dances, and Thillai is the first of them.
- Kerala
- The Nataraja form is kept in the Siva temples and the Koothambalam, the temple theatre, is built for the dance drama that belongs to it.
- North India
- Less worshipped as a form and more widely known as an image, with the bronze at the heart of how Indian art is presented abroad.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Thillai Nataraja Temple Chidambaram, Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu
- Arunachaleswarar Temple Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu
What is said
From the mantra library
In the almanac
Their nakshatras