Antique sculpture of Shiva Nataraji (from Skt. Nataraja - "King of Dance"). Bronze cast. India, the middle of the XX century.

Shiva is one of the leading gods of Hinduism and personifies the masculine element of the universe, at the same time destructive and creative energy.

Shiva is depicted on a lotus pedestal, his figure is inscribed in a fiery halo - prabha mandala, which by its shape reminds of infinity, the cyclical nature of time. The deity is depicted in dance - the tandava dance, destroying worlds at the end of time with its energetic rhythm. Winding out streams of water from the sacred Ganges river, which, according to legend, he took upon his head at a time when it erupted from heaven to earth, diverge from the head of the deity to the sides. The deity has four hands: in the two upper he holds traditional attributes - a drum of damaru and divine fire agni. The lower right hand in abhaya wise - a gesture of comfort, withdrawal of fear; the left stretches to a raised leg in a gesture of gaj hasta, denoting salvation and liberation. The deity stands on a dwarf, Apasmar Purusha, who symbolizes ignorance and immersion in the illusory nature of being, which destroys this world.

Images of Shiva in this iconography are common in India, but especially widely - in the southern part of the subcontinent. Here, on the territory of modern Thailand, in the X-XII centuries under the rulers of the Chola dynasty existed school-cult plastics, samples of which are recognized as the highest point of Indian bronze casting. This sculpture is a copy of the statue of the Chol time, made in the middle of the XX century.

Currently, replicas of Chol bronze adorn the expositions of many museums, including the permanent exhibition of the State Museum of the East.