Illustration
Here the Hindu god Shiva is depicted as the Lord of the Dance or Nataraja and is represented in his triple role as Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. He stands within a flaming halo representing Time, which is cyclical and has no end. He has one foot on the dwarf figure apasmara purusha who represents illusion and who leads men away from truth. He holds in his top left hand the fire (agni) which will destroy the universe and in his top right hand the drum (damaru) which made the first sounds of the creation. The lower right hand makes the abhayamudra gesture which calms all fear and the lower left hand points to his left foot, symbol of salvation.
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This image was first published on Flickr.
Original image by Peter F. Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 08 May 2013. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon a work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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Cite This Work
APA Style
F, P. (2013, May 08). Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance). World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/1194/shiva-nataraja-lord-of-the-dance/
Chicago Style
F, Peter. "Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance)." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified May 08, 2013. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/1194/shiva-nataraja-lord-of-the-dance/.
MLA Style
F, Peter. "Shiva Nataraja (Lord of the Dance)." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 08 May 2013. Web. 21 Feb 2025.
