The Dance in the Pine Forest

The sages of the pine forest

In the Dārukāvana, a forest of deodar pines, lived a community of great sages with their wives. They were masters of ritual. They believed that the correct performance of their sacrifices kept the universe in motion — that karma and rite were everything, and that no god was needed beyond them.

Śiva decided to teach them. He took the form of Bhikṣāṭana, a young and astonishingly beautiful mendicant, naked, ash-smeared, with a begging bowl in his hand, and walked into their hermitage. Viṣṇu came with him in the form of Mohinī, the enchantress.

The village in uproar

As the beggar passed through, the sages' wives forgot their housework, forgot themselves, and followed him through the forest, entranced. At the same time, the sages themselves could not take their eyes off Mohinī, and forgot their rituals.

When they came to their senses, the sages were furious. They did not recognise Śiva. They saw only a shameless stranger who had disturbed their order. So they turned their greatest weapon — their ritual power — against him.

The sacrifice of destruction

They lit a sacrificial fire and chanted spells of destruction. Out of the fire they sent a ferocious tiger. Śiva caught it, killed it with the nail of his little finger, and wrapped its skin around his waist as a garment.

They sent a deadly serpent. Śiva picked it up and wore it around his neck as a garland.

They sent a host of spirits and goblins. Śiva made them his attendants.

At last they sent the most dangerous thing of all: Muyalakaṉ, or Apasmāra — a dwarf demon who is forgetfulness and ignorance itself. Śiva set his right foot on the dwarf's back and pinned him to the ground.

The dance

And there, standing on ignorance, Śiva began to dance. The drum in his hand beat out the rhythm of creation. Fire blazed in his other hand. His hair flew out wide, the Gaṅgā and the crescent moon caught in it. A ring of flames rose around him. This was the Ānanda Tāṇḍava — the Dance of Bliss.

The sages watched, and their pride melted. They saw that the universe was not held in motion by their rituals, but by this dance. They fell at the dancer's feet.

Chidambaram

Two devotees are said to have longed to see this dance: the sage Vyāghrapāda, “Tiger-Foot”, and Patañjali, who was half serpent. Śiva promised them they would see it — and he danced for them in the forest of Tillai, which is Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu.

There, in the golden hall of the Naṭarāja temple, the dance is believed to go on for ever. And next to the image of Naṭarāja is the Chidambara Rahasyam, “the secret of Chidambaram”: an empty space behind a curtain, hung with golden leaves. It is the Ākāśa Liṅga — Śiva as space itself, the one form that has no form.