In Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
The Shiva Tandava Stotram praises the god exclusively in the midst of his fierce tandava, the cosmic dance that shakes the worlds. Composed in the voice of Ravana, the hymn never softens into the quiet yogin or the householding husband; every verse piles on the imagery of matted locks whipping through space, the Ganga tumbling from them, serpents coiled as garlands, and the drum rattling damat-damat. The deity addressed is therefore the dancer whose stamping foot both creates and dissolves, whose laughter is the roll of thunder, whose ornaments are living cobras. No other form—neither the lingam’s stillness nor the bilva’s cool leaf—enters the poem; the stotra remains locked inside the whirlwind of that single, world-shaking performance.
The Uttara Kanda of the Ramayana and later Shaiva retellings describe how Ravana, proud of the strength that had conquered the three worlds, came to Mount Kailasa and attempted to uproot it so that he might carry Shiva’s abode to Lanka. As he heaved, the mountain trembled and Parvati was alarmed. Shiva, seated in meditation, simply pressed the mountain down with the great toe of his right foot, pinning Ravana beneath the rock for a thousand years. In that crushed darkness the ten-headed king fashioned the Shiva Tandava Stotram, weaving the sights he remembered of the god’s dance into cascading alliteration. When the hymn was complete, Shiva released him and granted the boon of the invincible sword Chandrahasa. The stotra therefore originates not from a court poet or a rishi but from the agony and awe of the demon-king who had felt the weight of the dancer’s single toe.
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 drum-word ḍamaḍḍama contains the retroflex ḍ repeated with a doubled ḍḍ; speakers often soften both to dental d or collapse the cluster into a single “dam-a-dam,” erasing the hammer-stroke force that the verse deliberately mimics.
Weekday. Monday
Festival. Maha Shivaratri night recitation
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.