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 Nata-raja
means the king of actors, the Lord of the Stage.
The Lord has in one
hand a damaru representing nada, sound. From sound alone all
language comes, and language is t he means to knowledge. Story
read on...
Nataraja
holds fire in His left hand, representing destruction.
Creation and destruction go hand in hand. A bush is full of
flowers and looks beautiful. Flowers will have to whither away
so fruits can come. Fruits will have to perish for the seed to
come and start a new bush. This is the cycle of nature.
Nataraja's dance mudra tells us: "O man, come to me.
There alone is joy. His jnana-mudra tells, "come, with
this knowledge alone you can be happy.""
The
circle of flames around Him is the cycle of creation. He is
standing on a small baby, the demon Mulayaka. This demon
Mulayaka is the demon in all of us: the demon of pride…anger
…jealousy. When we surrender to Lord Nataraja, He stamps out
these demonic qualities in us.
Lord
has His one foot above the ground telling us,
""Raise yourself from all bad qualities…and keep
on dancing with joy. I am there to bless you."
Story
There is a beautiful story of a grammarian - Panini. Panini
was a scholar of Sanskrit, the ancient Hindu language. He was
also a great devotee of Lord Shiva. Sanskrit is a very
detailed language and has many many rules, and exceptions to
rules. Panini had a strong desire to organize all these rules
in a way so that even ordinary people could understand it. He
knew he could not do it, so he prayed to Lord Shiva, and Lord
Shiva came with this damaru and started giving out sounds:
a…e…u..n……ri…lri…k…..These sounds were the basis
of all grammar rules. They are called Mahesvara sutrani. These
rules are almost like a computer language, with codes.
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