Arudra Darshan: The Night Nataraja Dances
Arudra Darshan, the night Nataraja dances: the forest sages, the dwarf under his foot, Sendanar's kali, and why Chidambaram fills before dawn in Margazhi.
· 4 min read
In short
Arudra Darshan celebrates Nataraja's cosmic dance on Thiruvathirai star in Margazhi, with Chidambaram as its great centre.
The dwarf Apasmara under Nataraja's foot stands for forgetfulness, pinned but never destroyed, which is why the dance never stops.
The sages of the Darukavana forest were proud of their rituals. When Shiva wandered in as a beautiful wandering beggar, their wives followed him, and the sages, furious, turned their sacrificial fire against him. Out of it they sent a tiger, a snake and a dwarf to destroy him. He peeled the tiger and wore its skin. He put the snake around his neck like a garland. He set his foot on the dwarf's back and began to dance. The story says he won. The dance says something else, and Arudra Darshan, the night that dance is seen, is where to look for it.
What is Arudra Darshan?
Arudra Darshan is kept on the day of the Thiruvathirai star, Ardra in Sanskrit, in the Tamil month of Margazhi, close to the full moon, usually December or January. Darshan means seeing, and what is seen is Nataraja, Shiva as the king of dance, brought out of the sanctum in procession at dawn after a night-long abhishekam.
The festival is greatest at Chidambaram, the temple town the Tamil hymns call Thillai. The story goes that two sages, Patanjali, who was half serpent, and Vyaghrapada, who had the feet of a tiger, did penance there to see Shiva dance, and on Thiruvathirai he danced for them. Pilgrims who want the temple itself can read about the Chidambaram Nataraja temple; the festival belongs to the month of Margazhi and its cold, clear dawns.
Who is the dwarf under Nataraja's foot?
Look at any bronze Nataraja and you will find, under his right foot, a small figure lying face down, sometimes looking up, sometimes playing with a snake. His name is Apasmara, sometimes Muyalakan in Tamil, and he is the dwarf from the Darukavana story.
Apasmara means forgetfulness. He stands for ignorance, the particular kind that forgets what it is. Notice that he is not killed. He is pinned. Shiva keeps dancing on him, and if you read the tradition closely, he has to. If Apasmara were destroyed, knowledge would come too cheaply, without effort. If Shiva stopped dancing, Apasmara would get up.
So the story is really about a dance that has to continue, because ignorance never finally leaves. The sages in the forest thought they could win with a ritual. The dance says there is no final victory, only a steady, graceful pressure, kept up for ever. The rest of the symbolism, the drum, the flame, the ring of fire, is unpacked in what Nataraja symbolises. It is the same Shiva who sits silent as Dakshinamurthy, the teacher remembered on Guru Purnima: one teaches by stillness, the other by movement.
Kali, kootu and the poor man's offering
The food of the day has its own story. In Chidambaram lived a woodcutter named Sendanar, a devotee with almost nothing. On Thiruvathirai he had only a little rice flour and jaggery, so he made a simple kali, a sweet porridge, and offered it with shame to a wandering Shiva devotee who came to his door. The next morning, when the temple priests opened the sanctum, they found grains of kali on Nataraja's lips and scattered on the floor. The god had eaten at the poor man's house first.
That is why homes make thiruvathirai kali on the festival morning, with a seven-vegetable kootu, a thick stew, beside it; there is a recipe in thiruvathirai kali. The story says what much of the tradition says: the humble offering, given with love, reaches first.
Kerala keeps the same star as Thiruvathira, largely a women's festival. Women fast, bathe early, and dance the Thiruvathirakali in a circle, clapping, in memory of Parvati's longing for Shiva. It is the same night, seen from the other side of the divine marriage. The season of lamps and weddings began weeks earlier with Tulsi Vivah's household wedding; after Arudra come the sun festivals of Magha.
The foot that is lifted
We tend to look at Nataraja's right foot, the one pressing on Apasmara. But the dance is in the other foot. The left leg is raised and swung across the body, and one of his hands points down toward it. In the tradition, that lifted foot is the one that offers release, and the pointing hand says: take refuge here.
Nataraja's raised foot is the one that is lifted, not the one that crushes. The dance does not end in the victory over the dwarf. It ends in the gesture of release. On Arudra Darshan, if you have a picture of Nataraja at home, look at that foot for a minute. Then ask what you are still holding down, and whether it might be time to lift.
Questions people ask
What is the significance of the Thiruvathirai festival?
Thiruvathirai festival significance centres on Shiva as Nataraja, the cosmic dancer, whose dance creates, sustains and dissolves the universe. It falls on the day of Thiruvathirai, or Ardra, star in Margazhi. Devotees rise before dawn for the abhishekam and darshan of Nataraja, and families cook thiruvathirai kali and ezhu kari kootu as offerings.
What happens at Arudra Darshan in Chidambaram?
Arudra darshan at Chidambaram is the climax of a ten-day festival. Before dawn, Nataraja and Sivakami receive an elaborate abhishekam in the thousand-pillared hall, and later the deities emerge in a dancing procession for darshan. Tradition holds that Chidambaram is where Shiva danced for the sages Patanjali and Vyaghrapada, so devotees gather in large numbers.
What is the Sendanar story?
Sendanar was a poor woodcutter devotee who offered a simple kali, a sweet of rice and jaggery, to a Shiva devotee who came to his door one Thiruvathirai. The next morning, the priests at Chidambaram found kali scattered in the sanctum. The story explains the offering of thiruvathirai kali and shows that humble devotion is received as gladly as grand ritual.
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Written by
Reads the old stories for what they still mean
Hariharan writes about the myths, symbols and festival stories that most of us grew up hearing but were rarely asked to think about. He tells the story first, then asks what it is really about, and leaves the conclusion to you.
