Thiruvalangadu Nataraja, Chennai Government Museum, India.
The world renowned Thiruvalangadu Nataraja, Chennai Museum. (Thiruvalangadu is in the Thiruvallur Dt, near Chennai.) Around 12th century CE.
Many bronzes depicting Shiva Nataraja were produced in South India during the Chola Dynasty (880–1279). The Chola rulers were great patrons of the arts and were deeply devoted to Shiva as Lord of the Dance. Chola period sculptures conform to iconographic conventions, so sculptures from different centuries can look similar. Artists followed guidelines that determined size and proportions according to the deity’s hierarchical importance. As a result, the artist’s use of symbols and the intricacy and quality of craftsmanship are more important than originality.
Shiva, god of time, destruction, and creation, is the most popular and dramatic of the Hindu deities.One of Shiva’s many names and guises is the evocative Shiva Nataraja, Lord of dance and cosmic movement. The image of Shiva Nataraja gives concrete expression to the Hindu idea of endless motion and change in the physical world. Shiva dances the eternal, ceaseless energy of the cosmos, setting forth all movement and change, creation and destruction.
Shiva’s multiple arms suggest protection over the worshiper. In his upper right hand, he holds an hourglass-shaped drum that beats the rhythm of his dance. The drum represents sound, a vehicle of speech, divine truth, and revelation. The beating drum also conveys the sound of resonating space at the dawn of creation, a symbol of life. In Shiva’s upper left hand burns a flame, an element that destroys the world in Indian mythology. Life and death exist side by side in Shiva’s paradoxical nature.
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