Nataraja Mantra

Who Nataraja is

Nataraja is Shiva as the lord of the dance, frozen at the still point of the ananda-tandava within a circle of flame. The raised left foot, the dwarf Apasmara crushed beneath the right, the damaru in the upper right hand and the fire in the upper left, the lower right hand in abhaya and the lower left in gajahasta pointing to the lifted foot—these five gestures and attributes constitute a complete visual theology of creation, preservation, destruction, veiling, and grace. The form is inseparable from the temple of Chidambaram, where the golden hall, the Kanaka Sabha, is held to be the stage upon which the dance is eternally performed. Bronze casters of the Chola period fixed the iconography with such precision that every later Nataraja is measured against those tenth- and eleventh-century images. For musicians, dancers, and scholars of the performing arts, Nataraja is not a metaphor for art but the deity in whose presence the arts themselves are understood to arise.

The Dance in the Forest

The Kovil Puranam and the earlier Chidambara Mahatmya narrate that a group of heretical sages in the Daruvana forest believed they had attained power through ritual alone, without devotion. To humble them, Shiva appeared as a naked mendicant, accompanied by Vishnu in the form of Mohini. The sages’ wives were drawn to the mendicant; the sages, enraged, directed mantras and a fierce tiger, a serpent, and a dwarf demon against him. Shiva flayed the tiger for a garment, wore the serpent as ornament, and placed his foot upon the dwarf Apasmara, the personification of forgetfulness. He then began the ananda-tandava, the dance of bliss, within a circle of cosmic fire. The sages recognised that their rites were empty without the grace of the dancer, and the forest itself became the first stage. Thus Nataraja’s dance is not entertainment but the continuous act that keeps consciousness awake.

The mantra, in six scripts

The name mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.

More Nataraja mantras

Nataraja Stotram of Patanjali (Charana-shringa-rahita), verse 1

The verse of salutation, recited before or after japa.

Source: Nataraja Stotram of Sage Patanjali, known as Charana-shringa-rahita (written without long vowels), verse 1, from Stotrarnava. Some editions read kaviḍambanakaram for kaviḍambakagalam.

The syllable people get wrong

The retroflex ṭa in naṭa is almost always replaced by a soft dental ta, producing ‘nataraja’, which rests on dental nata, a word meaning bent or bowed, rather than naṭa, the dancer. The tongue must strike the palate firmly for ṭa—na-ṭa—so that the name carries the sharp, percussive attack proper to the drumbeat of the dance itself.

When Nataraja is chanted

Weekday. Monday

Festival. Arudra Darshanam, observed in the Tamil month of Margazhi under the star Tiruvadhirai, is the principal festival of Nataraja, when the Chidambaram murti is brought into the thousand-pillared hall for the ceremonial witnessing of the dance.

Questions