Chidambara Ragasiyam

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            Whenever we tell somebody to keep something unrevealed, people mock us and ask "whether it is Chidambara Ragasiyam(secrets of Chidambaram)?". It may be a mockery or an irony. But it has a great legend behind it.

தென்னாடுடைய சிவனே போற்றி!

Praise the lord Shiva of the South!

எந்நாட்டவர்க்கும் இறைவா போற்றி!

                        Chidamabaram is a town in Cuddalore district in Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is known for the Thillai Nataraj temple, which covers a distance of 40 acres. The name comes from Tamil word "Chitrambalam" which means "wisdom atmosphere". It offers a combination of three aspects of Shiva worship - Nataraja form, Linga form and formlessness i.e., omnipresence. It is a belief that there is a secret message conveyed through the Statue of Lord Shiva in the Chidambaram temple.

            The Chidambara Ragasiyam is a composition of architecture, astronomy, divinity, literature, mysteries and science. So, let us take a deep breathe to get astonished for next few minutes.

Literature and Astronomy:

            The sacred literature is interlinked with the astronomy. The saints proclaimed " Andamum pindamum ondru" in which 'Andam' means 'Cosmos' and 'Pindam' means human body. It is proved that the direction of movements of particles in atom and the existence of Cosmos were similar to the statue of Natraja. This is clearly depicted in the Lord Shiva statue present in the Chidambaram temple. 

• Shiva takes human form encircled by a ring which represents our Cosmos. And His heart is the place where the solar system exists.

• His four hands towards different direction and the position of his legs decode several mysteries. From His right hand to the leg symbolises the Milky way. And from His head to the leg represents the movement of cosmic waves through the Milky way.

• The wavy hair depicts the air. Then, the drums(Udukai) in one of His hands and the glowing fire in one of His other hands depicts sound and light energies respectively. The other hand symbozies "fear not". In the other way it can be seen as drums for "creation", fear not for "protection" and the glowing fire for "destruction". The lord Shiva is known for these three factors.

• The snake around His waist denotes the endless life cycle. The cloth which continuously swings at the left side of his waist denotes "Maya" which construes that nothing is constant.

• His body is partially male and partially female which denotes the Gender equality.

Architecture and Science:

            Similarly the architecture and the science were put together in order to built the temple. The temple was initially built on 10th century. And those architectures were made in 12th and 13th centuries by the Great Chola Empire. The architectures of the shrine has connections to the human body systems and functions.

¤ The temple's roof is made up of 21,600 gold sheets which denotes 21,600 breaths taken by human beings per day.

¤ These 21,600 gold sheets are fixed on the Gopuram using 72,000 nails which denotes the total number of nerves in the human body.

¤ The path to the statute lead us through left side stairs and right side stairs alternatively which denotes the interlinked neverous system from the heart.

¤ The Nataraja Statue is present in the left side of the shrine which denotes the location of human heart at the left side of the human chest.

¤ The 9 entrances of the temple denotes the 9 orifices(holes) in the human body.

Philosophy and Divinity :

            The philosophy and the divinity is interlinked to portray a secret. There is a segment in the shrine which is covered by a curtain. Behind the curtain are golden leaves, as from the Aegle Marmelos tree, signifying the presence of Shiva and Parvati. It is believed that saints alone can see the Gods(Shiva and His wife, Parvati) in their physical form.

            Meanwhile, Manikavasagar, one of the finest poet of ancient times gave a hint to understand that secret in his work "Thiruvaasagam". In which he told that God exists everywhere and that He does not have any physical form. The poet also states that a the God cannot be kept within a closed space. Which was also observed in his later construction of Aathmanatha samy temple at Pudukkottai. In that temple too there won't be any Shiva statue or Nandhi statue. 

            Many other philosophisers compared that the curtain secret with the human conscience. They stated that God is nowhere but inside us, which is invisible and can only be felt through good conscience. 

International Recognition:

            The world's largest physics laboratory called CERN, which is located on the Swiss-Franco border, just outside Geneva by the structure of Nataraja statue and requested Indian government for a Nataraja statue. 

            On 2004, Indian government gifted two statues to the CERN laboratory. They kept the statue on the entrance of the laboratory depicting the De broglie's theory, Theory of Relativity and Max planks theories "Dual nature of matter". As a plaque alongside the statue explains, the belief is that Lord Shiva danced the Universe into existence, motivates it, and will eventually extinguish it. Carl Sagan drew the metaphor between the cosmic dance of the Nataraj and the modern study of the 'cosmic dance' of subatomic particles.

            Fritjof Capra, an Austrian born American physicist and system theorist wrote an article titled " The dance of Shiva: The Hindu view of matter in the Light of Modern Physics." in 1972. It gained a huge reputation for Capra. So, he published a book called "The Tao of Physics", which became an international bestseller because of its central metaphor projects the Shiva's cosmic dance. In which he states “Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter,” and that “For the modern physicists, then, Shiva’s dance is the dance of subatomic matter.”

It is indeed as Capra concluded: “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.”

Mysteries:

     It was a great mystery that there was not even a single piece of invention on 10th century and still these much discoveries of science and astronomy were made possible with accuracy by the Indians, particularly Tamilans. There was another myth in the shrine is that those discoveries includes "Time Travel". It had been spoken that one who understands entire Chidambaram temple and it's entirety. He can attain the time travel secrets. And if that was exposed to the people, then the whole world would be put in greater risk. That's why the secret is kept unrevealed.

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