chola dynasty south indiasouth asian classicalchola
Nataraja (Shiva as Lord of Dance)
Chola-period bronze sculpture of Shiva as Nataraja (Lord of Dance), cast using the lost-wax (cire perdue) technique in Tamil Nadu, c. 10th–11th century CE. Now held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Scholarly Significance
Anchor the Chola bronze cluster and introduce South Indian sculpture, lost-wax casting, and anonymous workshop production patterns.
Notes
- ·One of the supreme examples of Chola bronze casting, depicting Shiva dancing within a ring of flames (prabhamandala).
- ·Produced by anonymous artisan-workshop tradition in Tamil Nadu using the cire perdue (lost-wax) technique.
- ·The Nataraja iconography encapsulates the cosmic cycle of creation, preservation, and dissolution.
- ·This node anchors the graph's first South Indian sculpture cluster and its first bronze-sculpture medium entry.