Pages In This Blog

Thursday, December 31, 2020

"SOMETHING ABOUT NATRAJ"

DATTATREYA

On 29th of December Indians celebrated DATTA JAYANTI. Dattatreya has three heads. The holy trinity is "BRHAMA", "VISHNU" and "MAHESH". One creates, another protects and the third one destructs. 

SHIVA

Shiva is known to destruct the unwanted from the earth. The Hindu Puraanas describe the "LEELAS" of Shiva. Here I am not writing about it. I wish to write something about NATRAJA, the dancing form of Shiva.

About Natraj

According to Hindu philosophical thought, Shiva is the first dancer. His name Natraj means the lord of dances and action and his dance in the hall of Chidambaram is the symbolisation of all movement within the cosmos in order to release humanity from the snares of illusion. The dance is in reality a manifestation of his five activities viz. Srishti (creation), Tirobhava (embodiment of the soul and rest) and Anugraha (release and salvation) representing respectively the activities of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh and Sadashiva. Creation arises from the dram protection proceeds from the hand of hope, from fire proceeds destruction, the foot held aloft gives release (Coomarswamy) We are also familier with Krishna and Radha, the eternal lovers, as dancing gods and goddess while Shiva is Natraj, Krishna is known as Natwar, who is the embodiment of spiritual love leading of the individual soul (Jitatma) to join the Divine soul (Paramatma), represented by Krishna.

Brahma was approached by Bharat. At the time of Shiva’s dance, I have seen his graceful style (Kaishiki) appropriate to the exotic sentiments and this is endowed with gentle Agraharas (dance sequences and has sentiments and states Rasa and Bhavas) and action as its soul. This style can not be practiced properly by man except with the help of women. Then Brahma created from his mind nymphs (Apsaras) who were skillful in embellishing the drama.

Where the hand moves, there the eyes follow, where the eyes go, the mind follows, where the mind goes, the mood follows and where the mood goes, there the flavour arises.

(Derived)