Introduction
Śiva Naṭarāja (Lord of Dance) with a tiger skin around his waist, bejeweled with serpents, a man’s earring in one ear and woman’s in the other, and the crescent moon and Gaṅgā (the Goddess Ganges) in his hair, dances his ecstatic Ānanda Tāṇḍava (Ferocious Dance of Bliss) within a ring of flames. In one of his right hands, he holds a drum and fire in one of his left hands. The second right hand is held in abhaya mudrā (fearlessness gesture), while the second left arm sweeps across his chest, the hand gently pointing toward his lifted left foot in dola mudrā, also called gajahasta. His lifted left leg crosses in front of him; the foot is curved gracefully upward (kuñcita pada). The...
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Shaw, J.L. (2022). Naṭarāja. In: Long, J.D., Sherma, R.D., Jain, P., Khanna, M. (eds) Hinduism and Tribal Religions. Encyclopedia of Indian Religions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1188-1_608
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