The question ‘Is Shiva’s manifestation as Nataraja an aspect of Shiva’s person or just one of the types of his image in art or worship tradition’ has always haunted the minds of thinkers. As for art critics they have invariably confined themselves to his various manifestations as reveal in his iconographic forms – image-type, and there ends their quest. Contrarily metaphysicians and theologians perceived his form as it manifested in the Upanishads and Puranas. They perceived him as representing one of the ‘Tri-murti’ – three forms or functional aspects of God, namely, creation, preservation and dissolution, that is, bringing the cosmos into existence, sustaining it and finally withdrawing it.
