ShivKali Oracles – Nataraj

Nataraj means the king of dancers. As the name suggests, Shiv is the king of all dancers. While any type of singing and dancing is about creative energy, Shiv’s Nataraj form shows all three states of creation, maintenance and destruction. He has four hands- one hand holds a damaru, another hand holds fire. The other two hands make abhay mudra and gajahasta mudra. The damaru symbolizes OM-kara which is the sound of creation and the fire symbolizes destruction. The abhay mudra symbolizes stability and the gajahasta symbolizes liberation. Nataraj is not any avatar of Shiv, rather he is the Shiv himself in dancing position. He dances inside a prabha mandal (glowing circle) this symbolizes his authority over kaal or time. He reminds us that the cycle of srishti-sthiti-binash is a cyclical process and everyone is a slave of time.

Now, when we talk about dance, it is actually about rhythms. Without rhythmic steps, dancing is not possible. As mentioned earlier, Nataraj’s dance is a cycle of srishti-sthiti-binash. Interestingly, modern physics has discovered that all subatomic particles (proton, neutron, electron, photon, neutrino etc.) vibrate in certain frequencies. In this sense, these particles also have their own rhythm. As we all know, accumulation of particles can create elements or items and separation of atomic particles causes destruction (nuclear fission, this is the base of nuclear energy created in power plants or in atomic bomb).