ABSTRACT
Rodin’s poetic response to the image of Nataraja is a communion across cultures, at once profound and transformative. The kinship between Shiva and dance goes back to 200 CE, the approximate period of the Natyashastra (NS). Drama was invented by Brahma and dance by Shiva, says the NS. Poets from other Indian languages have also joined the chorus of the Tamil poets in singing of Shiva’s dance. One of the most passionate dramatizations is found in Ravana’s Sanskrit hymn Shiva Tandava Stotram. The Tamil Shaivite theologians developed an elaborate mythology and esoteric soteriology based on it. The different body parts of dancing Shiva became symbolic of the five different cosmic functions of Tord Shiva; of five letters of panchakshara mantra OM NAMA SHIVAYA; of five elements of the cosmos, and so on.
