In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
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, veiling, grace, and release. 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 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. The same episode is alluded to in the Tamil hymns of Manikkavachakar, who sings of the Lord who dances so that the universe may not fall into the sleep of Apasmara. Thus Nataraja’s dance is not entertainment but the continuous act that keeps consciousness awake.
The seed mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.
Aim is the mantra, in a sense. The rest is address and salutation; the seed syllable carries the goddess. Where a practitioner has been given a very short practice, it is often Aim alone.
The retroflex ṭa in naṭa is almost always replaced by a soft dental ta, producing ‘nataraja’ as if the word were built on the ordinary Sanskrit nata meaning actor. 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.
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.
Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.
Where a matter carries real weight — an examination that decides a course, a performance, a child whose studies have stalled — devotees sponsor the homa alongside their own practice. Performed individually at our Yagna Ashram in your name and gotra, on a muhurta calculated from your chart, and telecast live so you can watch it done for you.