Shri Shiva Nataraja: His Temple in Chidambaram  
Location: India   Length: 7 min    56k    300k    700k     56k    300k    700k
The temple of Chidambaram , India , is the home of the Dancing Shiva, Lord of Cosmic Dance, Shiva Nataraja, who dances the dance of Creation and Destruction. One of India ’s largest, it is one of the very few temples practicing the Vedic tradition and rituals. This doctrine has been preserved by a community of hereditary priests, the Deekshithars, in an unbroken oral tradition dating to prehistoric times. The temple’s early history is obscure, but it reached its present form in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries under of the kings of the Chola Dynasty.