Re-envisioning Śiva Naṭarāja. A Multidisciplinary Perspective offers new insights into the dancing Śiva as icon and concept. Each of the seven essays in this volume addresses an aspect of the Naṭarāja (a specific form of the dancing Śiva) that has been until now untouched by scholars, or one for which the research is here moved substantially forward. Through the use of hitherto unexplored materials - murals, prints, icons, Sanskrit iconographic and ritual texts, Tamil inscriptions, and the analysis of metal alloys and casting techniques - old views are checked and challenged, and new ideas are proposed. Combining a wide range of fields of expertise, the volume will add to our knowledge about this well-studied, but poorly understood icon. With contributions by Anna A. Ślączka, Anna L. Dallapiccola, Nicolas Cane, Leslie C. Orr, Richard H. Davis, Sharada Srinivasan, Libbie Mills, Corinna Wessels-Mevissen.
Anna A. Ślączka, Ph.D. (2006), Leiden University, is Curator of South Asian Art at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has published extensively on Hindu art and ritual, including
Temple Consecration Rituals in Ancient India: Text and Archaeology (Brill, 2007).
All scholars of South Asian art, Sanskrit, Hindu ritual and Tamil epigraphy, and anyone interested in the Naṭarāja icon, ancient bronze casting technologies, and the history of representing dance.