Hindu Mythology: Nataraja

Nataraja

• Nataraja's meagre attire contrasts with the rugged Himalayan landscape, suggesting detachment.
• His dance represents the rhythmic activity of vibrant cosmic phenomena.
• The snakes he wears symbolize the life forces that merge in the absolute.
• The sacred ash he smears on his body signifies the purest and ultimate state of materiality.

Goddess Saraswati

• Saraswati is the deity of knowledge and arts.
• The texts she holds represent the four Vedas.
• The musical instrument in her hands indicates the melodious dimensions of a life that has attained perfection.
• Her seated posture on the lotus shows her firm establishment in pure knowledge.

Goddess Lakshmi

• Lakshmi represents infinite riches and prosperity, not just material, but also ethical and moral.
• Lakshmi was obtained from churning the milky ocean, symbolizing the acquisition of spiritual knowledge.
• The milky ocean represents the ocean of the mind, a repository of good and bad, which yields negativities and then riches.

Goddess Parvati

• Parvati is the epitome of intelligence that discriminates between good and bad, and real and unreal.
• She is also Annapurneswari, the bestower of food, where food represents sense-objects.

The Devas

• The Devas are spiritually evolved humans, or celestial beings.
• The Vedas maintain that Reality is One, and the One also exists as the many.

Sanatana Dharma

• Sanatana Dharma is not a polytheistic religion, nor is it theistic.
• It is not even a religion, but a unique system.
• The allegation of polytheism is a consequence of the west's misunderstanding of Sanatana Dharma symbology.

Symbols and Idol Worship

• Symbols are gross representations of subtle truths, serving as a language that articulates the verbally inarticulable.
• Īśvara-symbols are links between worlds, material and spiritual, inner and outer, lower and higher, gross and subtle.
• The art of Īśvara-symbolism was gifted to us by the Self-realised sages.

Brahma

• Brahma's four faces represent the four Vedas, the totality of cosmic knowledge.
• Brahma is wedded to Saraswati, the deity of knowledge, symbolizing the creative force wedded to the knowledge of how to create.

Vishnu

• Vishnu symbolizes the all-pervading reality, infinite in nature, as his blue hue suggests.
• His reclination on the thousand-headed Ananta serpent speaks for mastery over endless ego-desires.
• He is wedded to Lakshmi, the deity of all forms of prosperity.

Siva

• Siva, seated in the stable Padmasana posture, personifies the unruffled absolute state, beyond birth and death, and time and space.
• His half-closed eyes suggest perception of inside as well as outside, and absorption in inner harmony while involved in outer activity.
• His third eye represents the extra insight of intuition.