DANCE DIVINE AND THE COSMIC SYMBOLISM

DANCE DIVINE AND THE COSMIC SYMBOLISM

The scene was TILLAI – a forest of tillai (Excoecaria Agallocha) shrubs – the place where Chidambaram is situated in Tamilnadu today. Vyagrapada was the learned son of a great ascetic. He came to Tillai to perform penance. There he saw a Shiva-linga under a banyan tree near a sacred tank. He consecrated another Shiva-linga near another tank, west of the original, and worshipped both the images. The flowers he plucked for worship were spoiled by honey bees since he had to gather them after dawn. He prayed to the Lord to provide him with the eyes, claws and feet of a tiger so that he may collect flawless flowers for worship. His request was granted. Hence his name was VyAgrapAda (vYAgra = tiger, pAda = feet) One day in yogic trance he had a vision of the Lord’s dance in a forest. He yearned to see it himself and awaited the day.

Lord Vishnu reclining on Adisesha (the serpent-seat of God) was one day in an uncommon mood which both Lakshmi and Adisesha noticed. Asked about it, the Lord narrated a long story. The previous night he accompanied Lord Shiva to the Daruka forest to test the piety of the Rishis there. The two Lords, Shiva and Vishnu, assumed the disguise of a naked beggar, begging for food (BhikshATana-mUrti) and of a beautiful voluptuous woman (Mohini). The Rishi wives and the Rishis lost their senses on seeing this (divine) pair and went after them. When the Rishis discovered who the intruder was who disturbed the balance of their wives, they set up in anger an unholy sacrifice out of which they pulled, one after the other, a tiger, a ball of fire, a serpent and a monster and hurled these at Shiva. The latter peeled off the skin of the tiger and wore it round his waist. He caught hold of the ball of fire in his left hand and held it aloft. He calmed the serpent and wore it round his neck as an ornament. By this time he had begun to dance in joy. So when they set up the monster against him, he dwarfed the monster, stood on it on one leg and continued his dance. Vishnu and the others were charmed by this Ananda-tANDava of the Lord. The Rishis were blessed and the two Lords of the Trinity disappeared.

Hearing the rapturous narration of this by Lord Vishnu, Adisesha wanted to be blessed to see this dance of the Lord. He was accordingly asked to do a penance. He did. At the end of it he was born as the son of Anasuya on Earth. One tradition says he fell from heaven into the folded hands of Anasuya when she prayed for a son. So he was called Patanjali (Pat = fall; anjali = folded hands). The other tradition says Adisesha emerged from Anasuya’s hand as a serpent. The frightened Anasuya dropped the hooded serpent and so he was Patanjali (= one who had been dropped from the palm). In this form he went to  Tillai, joined Vyagrapada and told him his desire to see the Lord’s dance. The ‘tiger-sage’ was delighted to see this ‘serpent-sage’ with the same purpose as himself. Patanjali also established another hermitage and another Shiva-linga and worshipped both his linga and the original linga of Tillai.

Several years passed in this manner. Then on a Thursday with the Sun in Capricornus and Moon in Pushya (Thaip-pUsam day) the Lord manifested Himself and danced before them in the presence of Parvati. The two sages relished it to their heart’s content and prayed that the Lord should stay permanently at Tillai so that all of humanity may see this Ananda-tANDava and be blessed. And thus He stands there even today as Nataraja, the King of Dancers, along with His consort.

The Dance Divine represented in the form of Nataraja is symbolic of the dynamic aspect of the ultimate Reality. The art of dancing by the finite human is a meagre attempt to express the mystery of the Cosmic Rhythm in the movements of the physical body. But the divine dance is a supreme reflection and creative expression of the rhythm which underlies the whole universe and thus becomes a unique contribution of Indian thought to the world’s culture. It has an applied symbolism of the five-fold gamut of divine activities : sRshTi  (Creation, Evolution), sthiti  (Preservation, sustenance),  samhAra  (Destruction, Dissolution),  tirodhAna  (Concealment, Illusion, indicating Bondage) and anugraha (Grace, indicating Release or Moksha).

The rear right arm which carries the Damaru (drum) is indicative of Creation. It represents through its vibration the alternation of Consciousness between the manifest (universe) and the unmanifest (absolute). From the Damaruka evolved the seven notes of music as well as the eleven Mahesvara sUtras (which is the foundation of all grammar of language). These are the concluding strokes Shiva made on his drum as he stopped dancing, stopped whirling round and round. The front right hand with palm raised is a gesture of protection to those in the whirl of life. It is called the abhaya-hasta. The rear left hand which holds the pot of fire is indicative of samhAra or Destruction. The front left hand extends across the chest, in a majestic sweep, its fingers pointing graciously and beautifully to the tip of the left leg, which is raised in a dancing posture. This leg is called kunchita-pAda (kunchita = raised, lifted or bent). The posture of this hand is called gaja-hasta, meaning it is like an elephant’s trunk. The hand points to the uplifted foot, which grants the ultimate release, namely Moksha. In this sense this hand is also the varada-hasta (the boon-granting hand). That the fingers of this hand point exactly to the tip of the left leg is demonstrated twice every year when the Abhisheka is performed for the icon in the 1000-pillared hall.  (One of these two days is the Arudra Darsanam day which falls on December 26 this year, 2015). Then one can see that the milk poured on the left hand drops down exactly at the tip of the raised foot. The right foot that presses on the wriggling apasmAraka-purusha (the Evil personified and dwarfed by the Lord) – called muyalakan in Tamil scriptures – represents the fifth function of the Lord, namely Concealment. The Lord dances on the remains of ego and ignorance so that the worshipper is free of the concealed evil of these two. The monster muyalakan is also conceived as mahA-mAyA which is the cause for all birth and death. It is also the cause for the three states of consciousness, namely, waking, dreaming and sleeping. The raised left foot indicates the fourth state beyond these three and that is why it is indicated by His own left index finger of the right hand as the only refuge.  The ecstatic and vibrant nature of the dance, with the Lord whirling round on the one right leg is indicated by the matted hair (jaTa) flying on both sides of the head in waves one above the other and by a piece of cloth, partly around the waist and partly thrown over the left shoulder also flying in the air.

Synthesis of Science, Religion and Art. Ananda Coomaraswamy writes in his 'DANCE OF SHIVA'' "What a grand conception! How amazing is the range of thought of the Rishi artist who brought forth the image of this reality, a key to the complex tissue of life, a theory of nature, universal in appeal to the philosopher, the lover, the artist of all ages and of all countries! Here is perpetual movement, perpetually [oised -- the rhythm of the spirit. There cannot be a more exact or wiser creation of the image of that Energy which Science must postulate behind all phenbomena. If we would reconcile Time with Eternity, we can scarcely do so otherwise than by the conception of the alternations implied bythe drum and by the fire in the night of Brahma! Nature is inert and cannot dance till Shiva wills it. He rises from His rapture, and, through dancing, sends inert matter pulsing waves of awakening sound, and lo! Matter also dances appearing as a glory round about Him.  By dancing He sustains its manifold phenomena. In the fullness of Time, still dancing, He destroys all forms and names by fire and gives new rest. This is poetry, but none the less, science!"

In the esoteric interpretations about the divine feet in the advaita tradition, however, things are more sophisticated. There is the 'tookiya tiruvaDi' (the raised foot) of the Lord of the Cosmic Dance and there is the 'oonRiya tiruvaDi' (the placed foot). The raised foot of the Divine gives moksha (liberation) from the cycle of births and deaths, whereas the placed foot disintegrates all the sins of the individual. In addition to the standard three functions of the Divine Absolute, namely, Creation, Sustenance and Dissolution, there are two more, called tirodhAna (= concealment, eradication, vanishing) and anugraha (=Grace). These five-fold phenomena constitute the entire cosmic cycle of events. Though the third function, dissolution, puts an end to everything, it does not put an end to the sins - why sins, in fact all karma - in the bank-balance of individual JIvas. They remain in latent form till the beginning of the next cycle of creation. It is only the tirodhAna function of the Lord that eradicates the latent vAsanAs stored up by past karma. This 'tirodhAna' is the function of the 'placed foot' of the Divine. On the other hand, anugraha - Grace, the award of moksha is the function of the 'raised' foot of the Lord. That is why one surrenders to the 'tookiya tiruvaDi' of the Lord for Him to grace us so that 'we are no more thrown into the deep abysses of the feminine womb to be born again.

In the advaita tradition, this 'tookiya tiruvaDi' is equated to the Guru. He is the One on Earth who can grant the same Grace. The small poem bhaja-govindam of Adi SankarAchArya extols the lotus feet of the Guru for this very purpose. Incidentally the folklore is that Shankara immortalised the name Govinda in that stotra because it was the name of his Guru! Indeed the Guru's Grace can give us a double benefit. It can give us what we want in this mundane world as well as take us towards the Lord. Guru destroys the ignorance of the disciple. He may do it by actual teaching, He may do it by just a blessing, or he may do it by a spiritual fiat. The last verse of bhaja-govindam talks of the disciple who is guru-caraNAmbhuja-nirbhara-bhaktaH, i.e, the one who is deeply immersed in the lotus feet of the guru. The profound subtlety in this reference to the feet of the guru here is to the fact that the guru stands for certain principles of behaviour as well as of wisdom. He not only stands for them but he stands on them! -- in the sense that the greatness of the guru goes back to the values of life for which he lives and preaches all his life. So the sandals or the feet on which he stands represent the values for which he stood. Therefore the devotion to those feet and to those sandals of the divine guru, will certainly confer on one the strength to respect and reverberate the same values. His 'placed foot' is ideal for us to cling close to his ideals and values.

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