shivas tandav interpretation: shivratri special

The Great Lord Nataraja – the Hadron Collider ; what do they have in common?

Most people today must be aware of the ‘large Hadron Collider’ in Switzerland , unveiled with much fanfare this month . Its purpose is to recreate the primordial conditions of the universe, and create a small version of the so-called ‘big bang’, by smashing atoms at near-light speed.

However few people are aware that on June 18, 2004, an unusual landmark was unveiled at CERN, the European Centre for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva – a 2m tall statue of the Hindu deity ‘Nataraja’ who is none other than ‘Shiva’. The statue, symbolizing Shiva’s cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was given to CERN by the Indian Government to celebrate the research centre’s long association with India.



Nataraj, the dancing form of Lord Shiva, is a symbolic synthesis of the most important aspects of Hinduism, and the summary of the central tenets of this Vedic religion. The term ‘Nataraj’ means ‘King of Dancers’ (Sanskrit nata = dance; raja = king).

A special plaque next to the Shiva statue explains the significance of the metaphor of Shiva’s cosmic dance with several quotations from top physicist Fritjof Capra’s book – The Tao of Physics.

Here is a quotation from Fritjof Capra that has been put in that special plaque “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 for the modern physicists, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created different forms of visual images of dancing Shiva 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.





MORE ON THE NATARAJ STATUE:

The parallel between Shiva’s dance and the dance of subatomic particles was discussed by Fritjof Capra in 1972 in an article titled ‘The Dance of Shiva: The Hindu View of Matter in the Light of Modern Physics‘

Shiva’s cosmic dance then became a central metaphor in Capra’s international bestseller The Tao of Physics, first published in 1975 and still in print in over 40 editions around the world.



He says that “every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction…without end…

For the modern physicists then Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter. As in Hindu mythology, it is a continual dance of creation and destruction involving the whole cosmos; the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena.”

“The Wave Structure of Matter Explains the Atomic Structure of Matter. The ‘Particle’ as the Wave-Center of a Spherical Standing Wave in Space explains the cosmic dance of Nataraja”

Fritjof Capra, on the cover of his book had reproduced the photomontage of dancing Nataraja super imposed on subatomic particles photographed in a chamber. (In the present day editions this has been replaced with a Yin and Yang symbol)

This is a strikingly similar comparison by a great modern scientist to Swamiji’s description of Lord Shiva. Capra is a foremost proponent of the’wave theory’ on the basis of which the massive Hadron collider experiment is being carried out. This establishes that ancient Hindu scriptural knowledge explains the fabric of time and space as seen by great Rishis of the time, and which is perceivable by great saints even today, without the need for a 27 km long machine like the Hadron collider!

Eminent scholar G.P. Srinivasan says:

“Fritjof Capra is correct that matter can not be separated from motion; the error of modern physics has been in the conception of Motion as the motion of Matter (‘subatomic particles’) rather than the wave motion of Space. Western Physics (with its ‘particles’ and ‘forces / fields’ in ‘Space Time’) has never correctly understood the Eastern worldview. It is also important to understand that the ancient Indian philosophers did actually know how the universe was a dynamic unity, what matter was, how the One Thing / Brahman caused and connected the many things….Recent discoveries on the properties of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter (Wolff, Haselhurst) confirm that we can understand Reality and the interconnection of all things from a logical/scientific foundation.”



Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), leading English Sculptor, also wrote about Shiva-Nataraja:”Shiva dances, creating the world and destroying it, his large rhythms conjure up vast eons of time, and his movements have a relentless magical power of incantation. Our European allegories are banal and pointless by comparison with these profound works, devoid of the trappings of symbolism, concentrating on the essential, and the essentially plastic’.

Shiva is the Divine Dancer, visualized in terms of motion and vibration, who in 108 varied movements interprets the mathematical Law of the Universe.

According to the great Art Historian Dr. Ananda K. Coomarswamy, (1877-1947) the dance of Shiva represents his following five activities namely,

l ‘Shrishti’ – creation, evolution l ‘Sthiti’ – preservation, support l ‘Samhara’ – destruction, evolution l ‘Tirobhava’ – illusion l ‘Anugraha’-release, emancipation, grace

He states in his famous book ‘Dance of Shiva‘ that Lord Shiva as represented in the Nataraja form is a remarkably resplendent wonder of the aesthetic world.

He puts it in beautiful words : “The Indian Nataraja may well be claimed as the clearest, most logical and impassioned statement of the conception of life as an eternal Becoming. This is His dance in the last night of the world when the stars fall from their courses and all is reduced to ashes, to be ever rekindled, ever renewed by the boundless power of the Lord. The Dionysian frenzy of his whirling dance presents affirmation of the eternal, unseen spectacle of the dynamic disintegration and renewal, birth and death, of all cosmic matter in every second as in every kalpa of time’. Thus Nataraja typifies the universe in the action of creation and destruction. The overall temper of the image is paradoxical, uniting the inner tranquillity, and outside activity of Lord Shiva.”

Nataraj is the “clearest image of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of…A more fluid and energetic representation of a moving figure than the dancing figure of Shiva can scarcely be found anywhere,”



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