The dance of Shiva is called Anandatandava, meaning the dance of bliss, and symbolizes the cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, as well as the daily rhythm of birth and death. The dance is a pictorial allegory of eternal energy—creation, destruction, preservation, salvation, and illusion.
A copy of this work is in the house of the leading scientist, Fritjof Capra, who has conducted extensive research in particle physics and systems theory, He is a great admirer of the Nataraja and can almost never be seen without a statue of Nataraja by his side. In his books and his lectures, he draws many parallels between Modern Physics and the dancing Shiva. He has been a huge influence on this project, here is an excerpt from his book: “Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter, and that for the modern physicists, then the dance of Shiva is the dance of subatomic matter. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.”
Dr. Capra with the Shiva Nataraja in the background while promoting the online Capra Course. The Shiva Nataraja has been a constant inspiration for Dr. Capra for almost 50 years, during which he has always had several statues and other images of dancing Shivas in his living and working spaces.
The Lingam is perhaps the best known of anionic images in India. The Lingam consists of two parts: The vertical stone shaft, which may be seen as the male component, Siva, and the circular horizontal base called a Yoni or Pitha, which is the female component, Sakti. The wedge shaped spout is also part of the Yoni and serves as a drain to carry away the water offerings poured upon the lingam.
Together the lingam and pitha form the Siva – Sakti symbol of divine unity. The one who is commonly called “Siva” is seen in the in the lingam as both Siva and Sakti, male and female, divine spirit and divine matter, transcendent and immanent, aloof and active.