The Lord of Dance: History and symbolism of Shiva’s Nataraja form

Srikanda Sthapathy, 61, who crafted the statue along with his brothers, told The Indian Express that the design draws inspiration from three revered Nataraja idols — the Thillai Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram, the Uma Maheswarar Temple in Konerirajapuram, and the Brihadeeswara (Big) Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Thanjavur.

The #Nataraja statue made of Ashtadhatu is installed at the Bharat Mandapam. The 27 feet tall, 18-ton-weight statue is the tallest statue made of Ashtadhatu and is sculpted by the renowned sculptor Radhakrishnan Sthapaty of Swami Malai in Tamil Nadu and his team in a record 7… pic.twitter.com/Gf0ZCpF7Fy

— Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (@ignca_delhi) September 5, 2023

This is how the statue was sculpted, and the history and religious symbolism of Lord Shiva’s dancing form.

The Cholas and Nataraja

All three temples the Bharat Mandapam Nataraja statue is inspired from were originally constructed by the Cholas, who at their peak around the 9th-11th centuries AD, ruled over much of peninsular India.

The Cholas were great patrons of art and high culture. Historian of art and culture and Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex Partha Mitter wrote in ‘Indian Art’ (2001): “Chola art and architecture in South India was a product of a prosperous, highly efficient empire during the period of its greatest territorial expansion.”

The Cholas were devout Shaivites, building elaborate Shiva temples (like the one in Thanjavur) across their territories. “Among icons which form the most important part of Chola sculpture, Shaiva figures predominate…although very fine Vaishnava and Jain images are not unknown,” K A Nilakanta Sastri, the pioneering historian of South India, wrote in The Colas (1937).

Although Shiva was first portrayed in sculpture as Nataraja in the fifth century AD, its present, world-famous form evolved under the Cholas. “The Nataraja image in its various forms…holds the first place among Chola bronzes,” Sastri wrote. While stone images of Nataraja are not uncommon, it is the bronze sculpture that has had the greatest cultural resonance through the years.

Shiva as the Lord of Dance

Shiva, as he is worshipped today, evolved from the Vedic deity Rudra. In many ways, he is the most complex god of the Puranic pantheon.

“He is death and time (Mahakala) which destroys all things. But he is also a great ascetic and the patron of ascetics generally,” the great Indologist A L Basham wrote in his classic ‘The Wonder that was India’ (1954). Shiva is also the ‘Lord of Dance’ or Nataraja, who is said to have “invented no less than 108 different dances, some calm and gentle, others fierce, orgiastic and terrible,” Basham wrote.

In a typical portrayal, Nataraja is encompassed by flaming aureole or halo, which Sastri interpreted as “the circle of the world which he [Nataraja] both fills and oversteps”. The Lord’s long dreadlocks flare out due to the energy of his dance, and he strikes a rhythmic pose with his four arms.

A Chola period bronze Nataraja sculpture of dimensions 30 × 22.5 × 7 inches. Currently in the collection of Los Angeles Collection Museum of Art, (Wikimedia Commons)

In his upper right hand He holds a damru (a hand drum), whose sounds “draw all creatures into his rhythmic motion”, and in his upper left arm, he holds agni (fire), which he can wield to destroy the universe, Sastri wrote. Beneath one of Nataraja’s feet lies crushed a dwarf-like figure, representing illusion, which leads mankind astray.

Yet, amidst all the destructive symbolism, Nataraja also reassures, and shows Shiva as the Protector. With his front right hand, he makes the ‘abhayamudra’ (a gesture that allays fear), and with his raised feet, and with his front left arm he points to his raised feet, asking his devotees to seek refuge at his feet. Strikingly, Nataraja almost always wears a broad smile.

“He smiles at death and at life, at pain and at joy alike, or rather…his smile is both death and life, both joy and pain,” the French historian Renee Grousset wrote describing Nataraja (quoted by Sastri in ‘A History of South India’, 1955).

The lost wax method

The sculptors who created the 27-foot-tall Bharat Mandapam Nataraja trace their lineage 34 generations back to the Cholas. The process used has also been passed down from the time. “The crafting process adopted was the traditional ‘lost-wax’ casting method, indigenous to the Chola era,” Sthapathy told The Indian Express.

In fact, the lost-wax method can be dated back to at least 6,000 years back — a copper amulet crafted using this method at a neolithic site in Mehrgarh, Balochistan (present day Pakistan) is dated to circa 4,000 BC. Notably, the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro was also crafted using this technique.

For millennia, the lost wax method was the foremost technique to produce elaborate metallic sculptures, and the Cholas took this skill to its zenith.

In this method, first, a detailed wax model is made. This is then covered with a paste made of alluvial soil found on the banks of the Cauvery river that runs through the heart of what was Chola country. After this coating, applied multiple times, has dried, the figure is be exposed to high heat, causing the wax to burn away, leaving a hollow, intricately carved mould. This is ultimately filled by molten metal to produce the sculpture.

For master artisans like Sthapathy, this method is second nature. Yet the sheer scale of the Nataraja sculpture posed a challenge unlike any other. The project took a total of seven months to complete and cost around Rs 10 crore.