God’s Cosmic Dance – Rhythm from Creation to Cross

What is dance?  Theatrical dance encompasses rhythmic movements, meant to be viewed by spectators and tell a story.  Dancers coordinate their movements with other dancers, using different parts of their own body, so that their movements generate visual beauty and accentuate rhythm in a repeating time interval, called meter.

The Natya Sastra, the classic work on dance, teaches that entertainment should only be a side-effect of dance but not its primary goal.  The goal of music and dance is rasa, transporting the audience into deeper reality, where in wonder they reflect on spiritual and moral questions.

Nataraja of Shiva’s Tandava

So what does Divine Dance look like?  The Tandava (Tandavam, Tāṇḍava natyam or Nadanta) is associated with dance of the Gods.  The Ananda Tandava dances joy while Rudra Tandava dances anger. The Nataraja represents Divine Dance, with Shiva displayed as Lord of the Dance, in his familiar mudra (position of hands and feet).  His right foot is trampling upon demon Apasmara or Muyalaka.  However, the fingers point to the left foot, rising high off the ground.

Why does he point at it?

Because that lifted foot, defying gravity symbolizes liberation, moksha.  As Unmai Ulakham explains:

“Creation arises from the drum; protection proceeds from the hand of hope; from fire proceeds destruction; from the foot that is planted upon Muyalahan proceeds the destruction of evil; the foot held aloft gives mukti…..”

Krishna dances on demon-serpent Kaliya‘s head

Another classic divine dance is Krishna’s dance on Kaliya. According to mythology, Kaliya lived in the Yamuna river, terrifying the population and spreading his poison throughout the land.

When Krishna jumped into the river Kaliya captured him. Kaliya then stung Krishna, entwining Krishna in his coils, making the onlookers anxious. Krishna allowed this, but seeing the anxiety of the people decided to reassure them. Thus, Krishna jumped on the serpent’s hoods beginning His famous dance, symbolic of the Lord’s leela (divine play), called “Aarabhati”. In rhythm, Krishna danced on the each of the rising hoods of Kaliya, defeating him.

The Cross a Rhythmic Dance on the Serpent’s head

The Gospel declares that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus likewise was His dance defeating the serpent.  It was both Ananda Tandava and Rudra Tandava in that this dance aroused both joy and anger in the Lord.  We see this right at the beginning of human history, when Adam, the first Manu, succumbed to the serpent.  God (details here) had said to the serpent

And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your seed and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

Genesis 3:15

So this drama foretold a struggle between the Serpent and the Seed or Offspring of the Woman.  This seed was Jesus and their struggle climaxed at the cross.  As Krishna allowed Kaliya to strike him, so Jesus allowed the Serpent to strike him, confident of his final victory. As Shiva tramples on Apasmara while pointing to Moksha, so Jesus trampled on the serpent and made the way to life. The Bible describes His victory and our way to life like this:

When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, God made you alive with Christ, and he forgave all our sins. ¹⁴ He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross. ¹⁵ God stripped the spiritual rulers and powers of their authority. With the cross, he won the victory and showed the world that they were powerless.

Colossians 2:13-15

Their struggle unfolded in a rhythmic dance of ‘sevens’ and ‘threes’, seen in the final week of Jesus through Creation.

God’s foreknowledge revealed from beginning of Hebrew Vedas

Of all Sacred Books (Sanskrit & Hebrew Vedas, the gospels) there are only two weeks where the events of each day in the week are narrated.  The first such week, recorded in the beginning of the Hebrew Vedas, records how God created everything. 

The other week with daily events recorded is Jesus’ last week.  No other sage, Rsi or prophet have daily activities narrated for one complete week.  The Hebrew Veda Creation Account is given here.  We went through the daily events in Jesus’ last week and this table places each day in these two weeks side-by-side.  The auspicious number ‘seven’, which forms a week, is thus the base meter or timing which the Creator based his rhythm on.

Adam’s Day 6 Dance with Jesus

Each day’s events for these two weeks match each other, giving rhythmic symmetry.  At the end of both of these 7-day cycles, first fruits of new life is ready to burst forth and multiply a new creation.  So, Adam and Jesus are dancing together, making a composite drama. 

The Bible says of Adam that

… Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.

Romans5:14

and

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1Corinthians15:21-22

By comparing these two weeks we see that Adam dramatized a pattern with Jesus yielding rasa.  Did God need six days to create the world?  Could he not have made everything with one command?  Why then did he create in the order that he did?  Why did God rest on the seventh day when He cannot tire?  He did all in the timing and order that He did so that the final week of Jesus was anticipated already in Creation week. 

This is especially true of Day Six.  We see symmetry directly in the words used.  For example, instead of simply saying ‘Jesus died’ the Gospel says he ‘breathed his last’, a direct inverse pattern to Adam who received the ‘breath of life’.  Such a pattern from Time’s beginning shows foreknowledge spanning time and the world.  In short, it is a dance of the Divine.

Dancing in meters of ‘Three’

The number Three is considered auspicious since triah manifests Rtam, the rhythmic order and regularity that preserves Creation itself. Rtam is the underlying vibration pervading the whole creation. Therefore, it manifests itself in many ways as the orderly progress of time and events.

It is not surprising then that this same timing is found between the first 3 days of creation and the three days of Jesus in death.  This table highlights this pattern.

Thus God dances in a major meter (by sevens of days) and a minor meter (in days of three) just as dancers move their bodies in various timing cycles.

Subsequent mudras

The Hebrew Vedas recorded specific events and festivals picturing Jesus’ coming.  God gave these so we could know this was God’s drama, not man’s.  The table below summarizes some, with links to these great Signs recorded hundreds of years before Jesus lived.

In dance, there are the major movements of legs and torso, but the hands and fingers also are used to gracefully accentuate these movements.  We call these various poses of hands and fingers mudras.  These oracles and festivals are like mudras of the Divine Dance. Artistically, they point out details of the person and work of Jesus.  Like Natya Sastra enjoined about dance, God has moved in rhythm inviting us beyond entertainment to rasa.

Our Invitation

God invites us to join His dance.  We can understand our response in terms of Bhakti.

He invites us to enter His Love as deep as that between Rama and Sita.

Here understand how to receive the gift of eternal life offered by Jesus.