Shiva is also known as the King of Dancers. Dancing is regarded in India as an ancient form of magic. The dancer becomes a being that has supernatural powers, whose personality is transformed. Like yoga, the dance induces trance, ecstasy, the experience of the divine, the realization of one's own secret nature, and, finally, mergence into the divine essence. And to work magic, to put enchantment upon others, one has first to put enchantments upon oneself.
On a universal scale, Shiva is the Cosmic Dancer; in his dancing manifestation (Natraj) he embodies in himself, and simultaneously gives manifestation to, Eternal Energy. The forces gathered and projected in his frantic movement are the powers of the evolution, maintenance and dissolution of the world. Nature and all its creatures are the result of his eternal dance.
The details of the Natraj figure can be read, according to the Hindu tradition, in terms of a complex pictorial allegory.
The upper right hand carries a little drum, shaped like an hourglass, for the beating of the rhythm. This represents sound, the vehicle of speech, the conveyor of revelation, tradition, incantation, magic and divine truth. In India sound (OM) signifies the first moment of creation. Therefore this hand represents creation.
The opposite hand, the upper left, with a half moon posture of the fingers, carries on its palm a tongue of flame. Fire is the element of the destruction of the world. In Hindu belief, fire will at the end of time annihilate all of creation. This hand therefore represents destruction. Here then, in the balance of the hands, is illustrated the balance of creation and destruction: Sound versus Fire, as opposites.
The 'Fear Not' gesture, bestowing protection and peace, is displayed by the second right hand, representing maintenance, while the remaining left lifted across the chest, points downward to the uplifted left foot. This foot signifies Release (from the cycle of life) and is the refuge and salvation of the devotee. It is to be worshipped for the attainment of union with the Absolute. The hand pointing to the left foot is held in a pose imitative of the outstretched trunk of the elephant, reminding us of Ganesha, Shiva's son, the Remover of Obstacles.
The divinity is represented as dancing on the prostrate body of a dwarfish demon. This is Apasmara Purusha, the demon called Forgetfulness, or Heedlessness. It is symbolic for life's blindness, man's ignorance. The attainment of true wisdom comes from the conquest of this demon: the release from the bondages of the world.
So the elephant trunk hand links the three other hands representing creation, maintenance and destruction, to the two feet, one foot dancing on Forgetfulness and the other representing release. This linkage promises peace to the soul that experiences the relationship.
The ring of flames and light issues from and surrounds the god. This is said to signify the energy of wisdom, the transcendental light of the knowledge of truth. Another symbolic meaning of the halo of flames is that of OM, representing the totality of creation. The origin of the ring of flames is probably in the destructive aspect of Shiva; but Shiva's destruction is finally identical to release.
The incessant, triumphant and passionate motion of the swaying limbs is in significant contrast to the balance of the head and the immobility and calm of the trance-like, ascetic face. This represents the paradox of passing Time and Eternity, the indestructible Self and the mortal being. Shiva is the personification of the Absolute, the swallower of Time. He is both the archetypal ascetic and the archetypal dancer, total tranquillity and total activity.
From Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, by Heinrich Zimmer, a reworking of the lecture course delivered at Columbia University in the winter term of 1942. (Princeton University Press 1946, p151-168)
Durga is the unconquerable, sublime warrior maid. She is life energy itself, the primeval maternal principle, and she was created out of the combined anger of all the Gods.
The occasion of this miracle was one of those dark moments for the Gods, when a demon tyrant was threatening to undo the world. This time, not even Vishnu or Shiva could succeed in conquering the demon.
The titan was a colossal monster named Mahisha, who took the shape of a huge water buffalo bull. The Gods asked the help of Vishnu and Shiva and described to them the case of the victorious monster. Vishnu and Shiva swelled with wrath and the other gods also swelled with indignation. And immediately, their intense powers poured forth in the form of fire from their mouths. Vishnu, Shiva, and all the gods sent forth their energies, each according to his nature, as sheets and streams of flame. These fires all rushed together, combining in a flaming cloud, which grew and grew, and finally took the shape of the Goddess Durga. She was provided with 18 arms and the weapons of all the Gods. She was also given the lion that she is to ride.
Upon seeing this personification of the supreme energy of the universe, the miraculous combination of all their powers, the gods rejoiced and they paid Durga worship. By a gesture of perfect surrender and fully willed self abdication, the gods had returned their energies to the primeval Shakti, the One Force, the Fountain Head, from whom all had originally stemmed. She was the perennial, primal female, the mother of them all.
Durga, astride her lion, attacks the monster Mahisha, first with a noose, then with arrows, then with a sword, and each time Mahisha changes shape, from water buffalo, to lion, to elephant, and finally back to buffalo. Durga laughs scornfully, takes a drink from a bowl filled with the liquid of life force, and leaps in the air to attack Mahisha in the neck with her trident (given to her by Shiva). Mahisha tries to leave the buffalo body again, crawling from its mouth in the shape of a hero with a sword. But he has only half emerged when he is grabbed by his hair and beheaded by Durga, the invincible goddess.
From Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, by Heinrich Zimmer, a reworking of the lecture course delivered at Columbia University in the winter term of 1942. (Princeton University Press 1946, p190-194)
The mother goddess expressing the negative, destructive principle is represented as Kali, the Black One. Kali is the feminine form of the word "Kala", meaning "time". Time is the all-producing, all-annihilating principle, in the onflow of which everything that comes into existence again vanishes after the expiry of the brief time of its allotted of life.
Kali is the goddess of Death, the Dark Lady of the World.
In her four hands she holds the symbols of death, renunciation and the spiritual path of devotion: the noose (the lasso that catches and strangles the victim), the iron hook (which drags the victim to his doom), the rosary and the textbook of prayer. She wears a garland of sculls or severed heads around her neck ('mundamala') and drinks from a bowl of blood.
Sometimes she is shown holding a pair of scissors in her right hand, which severs the thread of life. She sometimes carries the sword, the symbol of physical extermination and spiritual decision; this sword cuts through error and ignorance.
One of the most popular depictions of Kali is that of the goddess, adorned with the blood-dripping hands and heads of her victims, dancing on the prostrate, corpse-like body of her husband Shiva. The Goddess is the feminine partner of Shiva, the faithful spouse, the ideal wife-consort of Hindu myth and civilization, yet she treads on the inanimate body of her beloved and only mate. She is black with death and her tongue is out to lick up the world; her teeth are hideous fangs. Her body is lithe and beautiful, and her breasts are big with milk. Paradoxical and gruesome, she is today one of the most cherished and widespread of the Hindu gods.
From Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, by Heinrich Zimmer, a reworking of the lecture course delivered at Columbia University in the winter term of 1942. (Princeton University Press 1946, p210-216).