Nataraja and the five acts

Thillai gives the dance a place of worship; Siddhanta reads in it the Lord, the soul and the loosening of its bonds.

Chidambaram, called Thillai in the hymns, is the shrine of the dancing Siva and Sivakami. Nataraja is enshrined in the Chitsabha, the hall of consciousness, also called the Chitrambalam, the small hall. The Kanakasabha, the golden hall, stands immediately before it. K. Vellai Varananar's Thillaip Perungoyil Varalaru, in its account of the temple's halls, distinguishes these adjoining spaces.

The image brings the three realities together. The Lord acts; the soul receives experience and release; the bonds lose their hold through His grace. Bodies and worlds arise from Maya through Siva's Sakti. The Lord does not become the material world, and the soul does not begin to exist when its body is created. The dance concerns their relation.

Unmai Vilakkam, verses 31–39, gives the compact reading of the form. Tirumantiram, Tantra 9, unfolds Tirukkoothu Darisanam, the vision of the sacred dance. Reading them together carries the eye from the gestures towards the work they accomplish in the soul.

✦Three accounts, three settings

Patanjali and Vyaghrapada at Thillai. The tradition remembered in Thillaip Perungoyil Varalaru, chapter 2, tells of two seekers of the dance. Vyaghrapada serves the Lord with flowers; Patanjali comes desiring to see His dance. At Thillai they receive that vision together. Their story centres on worship and the granting of a sought-for sight.

The sages of the Daruka forest. The tradition recounted in the same chapter places Siva among sages who trust the power of their rites. He comes as the alms-seeking Lord, with Vishnu as Mohini. Their hostile ritual cannot overcome Him; seeing His dance, they turn to worship. The setting is the forest and the correction of a claim to independent power.

The contest with Kali at Tiruvalangadu. The tradition presented in Umamaheswari Sivanesan's account of the five sabhas places a dance contest at Tiruvalangadu. Siva lifts His leg in the upward dance; Kali cannot match that movement, and He wins the contest. This belongs to Tiruvalangadu's Ratna Sabha, a distinct setting from the two sages' vision at Thillai.

All five acts serve the soul's ripening and release, including the concealment under which it first learns.

The Tamil name is aindhozhil, ஐந்தொழில், “five activities”. Sivagnana Bodham, sutra 1, begins with the world's arising, standing and withdrawal. Sivaprakasam, Pothu, verse 18, states their purpose for souls and says that none of the five can be explained apart from grace.

Concealment, Tirodhanam, needs care. Anavam is the soul's beginningless obscuration; Siva does not create it. His veiling power works within the bound condition, allowing experience through which that obscuration ripens. In arulal, grace names the act of liberation specifically; in speaking of all five as grace, Siddhanta names their common merciful purpose.

Verse 36 names the five acts in the gestures; verse 37 follows their purpose into the soul. The soul is lifted and immersed in bliss. It has not vanished from the account.

Each gesture has a stated reading in the texts; together they show power ordered towards release.

Unmai Vilakkam gives both the outward signs and their inward meaning. Its verses 34–37 are the basis of the following reading; J. M. Nallaswami Pillai's explanatory notes on those verses also identify the pressed-down impurity as Anavam.

The flaming arch is thus read through sacred sound. Its meaning reaches beyond the fire held in one hand, which verse 36 assigns to withdrawal.

The readings differ in one detail: Unmai Vilakkam 36 places concealment in the planted foot, while Tirumantiram 2799 speaks of the Lord's embrace.

The mantra and the image gather the same relations: Siva, grace, soul, concealment and impurity.

Unmai Vilakkam 33 places Na at the feet, Ma at the belly, Si at the shoulders, Va at the face and Ya at the crown. Verse 34 gives another contemplation: Si with the drum, Va with the sweeping hand, Ya with the hand of protection, Na with the fire, and Ma with the foot over Muyalakan. Pillai's note explicitly treats these as two ways of contemplating the five letters.

These bodily placements and the meanings of the letters belong to related but distinct acts of contemplation. In the doctrinal order Si–Va–Ya–Na–Ma, verse 41 names Siva, grace, the soul, concealment and impurity. The image lets the worshipper attend to relationships that the mantra names.

Unmai Vilakkam unfolds those placements and the movement from Na–Ma–Si–Va–Ya towards Si–Va–Ya–Na–Ma in verses 41–44. Carry that teaching into the dance: the soul, Ya, is to turn towards Siva through grace. The 36 Tattvas gives the account of the instruments through which its embodied knowing first works.

The saints meet the Dancer through sight, a heart changed by grace, and praise shared with other devotees.

✦Appar: a birth worth having

In Tirumurai 4.81.4, Appar looks at the face, the sacred ash and the raised foot. Human birth, from which the devotee seeks release, becomes precious because it allows this sight.

The hymn does not divide the body into a diagram. Its gaze loves the form that Siddhanta reads. Appar's Tevaram holds the experience in the saint's own voice.

✦Manikkavasagar: the heart becomes able to receive

Tiruthol Nokkam, sung at Thillai, turns a shared song into an account of inward change. In Tiruvasagam 15.4, the heart that seemed stone becomes responsive through compassion.

Its opening verse, 15.1, addresses the Dancer of Thillai and asks to reach His feet; 15.8 joins the receiving of the blissful Dancer's grace with the devotees' own joyful dance. Tiruvasagam gives this change the voice of lived devotion.

✦Tiruvisaippa and Tiruppallandu: the gathered voice

In Tirumurai 9.1.1, Tirumaligai Thevar addresses the Lord who delights in making the Hall His dancing place. The hymn asks how a servant can speak of Him. Sendanar's Tiruppallandu 1, Tirumurai 9.29.1, turns towards the whole company of worshippers.

The ending returns to release. The gathered devotees praise the One who gives them its path. Tirumurai 9 brings together that blessing and the Tiruvisaippa poets' approaches to the Hall.

Worship, festival processions and the singing of the hymns keep the dancing form before a gathered community.

At Chidambaram, the Podu Dikshitars serve the temple and conduct its rites. Ani Tirumanjanam, in Ani, and Margazhi Tiruvathirai, also called Arudra Darisanam, remain annual festivals of Nataraja and Sivakami. They include processions, the ceremonial bathing of the sacred forms and darisanam. Their civil-calendar dates vary with the festival calendar.

Reports of the Ani festival describe oduvars singing the Tirumurai before the chariots, alongside devotees preparing the streets for the procession. The Margazhi observance includes the bringing forth of Manikkavasagar's image and the Tiruvempavai observance before the Chitsabha. These join temple service, poetry and the act of seeing.

For Sendanar and the remembered offering of Tiruvathirai kali, read Tirumurai 9. For the festival flag and its inward reading, read Kodikkavi.

✦The five sabhas

The five dance halls associated with Siva's dance across Tamil Nadu are:

This group joins five shrines. Chidambaram also has five halls within its own temple complex: Chitsabha, Kanakasabha, Nritta Sabha, Deva Sabha and Raja Sabha.

Begin with the Tamil accounts of the dance, then read their explanations and return to the hymns.

✦Texts and explanations

• Unmai Vilakkam at Project Madurai, verses 31–44: the dance, its gestures and the five letters.
• Tirumantiram, Tantra 9, at Project Madurai: Tirukkoothu Darisanam, including verse 2799 on the five acts.
• Sivaprakasam at Tamil Wikisource, Pothu 18, “Ulakap pataippin payan”: why all five acts are grace.
• J. M. Nallaswami Pillai, “The Light of Truth or Unmai Vilakkam”: translation with commentarial notes, including the two contemplations of the five letters. For extended Tirumantiram study, M. Sundararaj's commentary in the introduction and notes accompanies B. Natarajan's translation published by Sri Ramakrishna Math.
• Appar's Tirumurai 4.81.4 at Shaivam; Tiruvasagam at Project Madurai, especially Tiruthol Nokkam 15.1, 15.4 and 15.8; and Tiruvisaippa and Tiruppallandu, especially 9.1.1 and 9.29.1.

✦The shrine and later readings

• K. Vellai Varananar, Thillaip Perungoyil Varalaru: the temple's halls and the accounts of Patanjali, Vyaghrapada and the forest sages.
• Umamaheswari Sivanesan, “Pancha Sabhai Temples History”: the five shrines and the remembered contest at Tiruvalangadu.
• Cuddalore District's account of the Nataraja temple names the halls and annual festivals. Reports of Ani Tirumanjanam in 2023 and the Margazhi festival opening in 2025 describe the rites and participation.
• Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Siva (1918): its title essay is an influential modern reading of the image. Read it alongside the Tamil texts that state the Siddhanta teaching.

✦Read with our pages

Unmai Vilakkam joins the image to the five letters. Tirumantiram places the dance within its account of worship and realisation. Sivaprakasam explains the five acts and the unchanging Lord; Sivagnana Siddhiyar develops the causes of the world. Tiruvarutpayan teaches grace and the guru. Appar's Tevaram, Tiruvasagam and Tirumurai 9 give the saints' voices at Thillai.