DANCING SHIVA
(With Interpretation)
Source: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
An assignment may have asked you to interpret this Fourteenth-Century sculpture, admittedly and purposefully with limited information. The criteria of interpretation was the image above, your logic and reason, and perhaps a little reasonable speculation. Below, I would like to present a common interpretation of the Dancing Shiva based on a much more thorough understanding of Hindu theology.
Shiva is depicted in the cosmic dance of creating and destroying the universe. He keeps rhythm with the small hour-glass-shaped drum he holds in his upper right hand. The rhythm itself is the heart-beat sound of the cosmos. This rhythm is the sound of creation which is therefore symbolized by the drum. At the same time that Shiva creates, he also destroys with the fire that he holds in his upper left hand. Thus a balance is struck in the universe. The lower right hand of the god provides solace to his followers by performing a traditional sign of benediction. This blessing is affirmed by the lower left hand's pose, which is also traditional. The fingers of this left hand form an imitation of an elephant's trunk, and they point to the left foot as it springs from the back of the dwarf of ignorance. This pose symbolizes to a follower the promise of release from the wheel of incarnation. Lastly, Shiva's right foot crushes the dwarf with all the force of the dance.
This interpretation is fairly traditional and conservative, but it forms only one of many possible views of this richly symbolic sculpture.