The Dance of Shiva
The Teaching
"Shiva dances the tandava, the dance that destroys the universe at the cycle's end. One hand beats the drum whose sound is creation; one hand holds the fire that ends the world; and one hand is raised, palm out, in abhaya, the gesture that means: do not be afraid. As Shiva turns to leave the stage with the world in ruin, the scene changes with his turning, and all things are remade under the cover of their destruction." — after Alan Watts, The Two Hands of God
Commentary
The Nataraja is one of the strangest objects in religious art: the destroyer of worlds, ringed in flame, dancing on the demon of ignorance, with one hand held up telling the onlooker not to be afraid. The reassurance is built directly into the act of destruction. The same hand that should be most terrifying is the one offering peace.
Watts extended the image: as Shiva finishes the wreckage and turns to walk offstage, the face on the back of his head is Brahma, the creator. (This last detail is Watts's poetic reading, not standard temple iconography, and should be presented as such.) Destroyer and creator are one figure seen from two sides. There is no moment in which the universe is actually lost.
Watts called this the cosmic punch line: the terrifying buildup, the total annihilation, then the unexpected anticlimax in which nothing was ever truly at stake. Comedy depends on surprise, and the surprise is that the ending was a beginning the whole time. The structure connects directly to the Kali Yuga teaching in The Body Politic: the age of disintegration is the prelude to a recreation, not the end of the story.
Shiva is usually translated Destroyer, but he destroys for the sake of beginning. Nothing is reborn that has not first died. The drum of creation and the fire of dissolution are one motion in a single dancer, which is why he is better understood as the Renewer.