“Āṅgikam bhuvanaṁ yasya
vācikaṁ sarva vāṅmayam
āhāryam candra tāradi
taṁ numaḥ sātvikaṁ Śivam”
We bow to Him the benevolent One.
Whose body is the whole universe.
Whose speech is the essence of all knowledge.
Whose ornaments are the moon and the stars…
(Dhyāna Śloka in praise of Lord Shiva)
In this episode Sarah will explain some of the symbolic meanings behind the iconography of Lord Shiva Nataraj, the cosmic dancer which simultaneously portrays the fluidity of the continuous movement of existence reverberating within the stillness of Consciousness. Then she will allude some of the meanings behind the dancing of the cosmic creation with the five divine activities or the five-fold dances which are paradoxically temporal and timeless. Finally, with Sarah, we will be introduced to the transforming power of life; Tāṇḍava and the non-dual Kashmir Shivaism tradition where they consider the Heart of Shiva to be in a state of perpetual movement.
“His form is everywhere, all-pervading in His Shiva-Shakti. Chidambaram is everywhere. As Shiva is all and omnipresent, everywhere is Shiva’s gracious dance made manifest. By His Grace, his five-fold dances are temporal and timeless. This is the sacred dance of Uma-Sahaya. He dances with Water, Fire, Wind and Ether. Thus, our Lord dances ever in the court. Visible to those who pass over Māyā and Mahāmāyā (illusion and super-illusion), Our Lord dances, His eternal dance”.
Quoted in Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Shiva, Fourteen Indian Essays.
