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On June 18, 2004, a 2 metre tall statue of Shiva
Nataraja, the Lord of Dance, was unveiled at CERN, the European Center
for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva. The statue, symbolizing
Shiva's cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was given to CERN by
the Indian government to celebrate the research center's long
association with India. In choosing the image of Shiva Nataraja, the
Indian government acknowledged the profound significance of the metaphor
of Shiva's dance for the cosmic dance of subatomic particles, which is
observed and analyzed by CERN's physicists. |
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The parallel between Shiva's dance and the dance of subatomic particles was first discussed by Fritjof Capra in an article titled "The Dance of Shiva: The Hindu View of Matter in the Light of Modern Physics," published in Main Currents in Modern Thought in 1972. Shiva's cosmic dance then became a central metaphor in Capra's international bestseller The Tao of Physics, first published in 1975 and still in print in over 40 editions around the world. |
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A special plaque next to the Shiva statue at CERN explains the
significance of the metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance with several
quotations from The Tao of Physics. The text of the plaque reads: Ananda
K. Coomaraswamy, seeing beyond the unsurpassed rhythm, beauty, power
and grace of the Nataraja, once wrote of it, "It is the clearest image
of the activity of God which any art or religion can boast of." |
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