Idol Dance Game

[Senaqua Hildreth]

ShivaNataraja, like many a Hindu deity, has two right hands. One is making the gesture of reassurance, which is almost identical to the gesture of blessing. The other is shaking a small drum, a damaru, traditionally made of acacia wood, although Tibetan Buddhists used to make theirs with skulls.

Tens of thousands of years in the past, and the hands and eyes are already shaping recalcitrant stone to something recognizably human, or divine: representational art. Already, this early in the history of the species, sculpture outspeaks scripture. The stone says something more than its mere shape, hybridizes the abstract and the concrete, teases us into meditation, into thought.

At the temple, during the puja, a tray covered in small candles floats between my hands. It circles the murti of the black avatar who sang the Bhagavad Gita, the classical Indian dancer of Vrindavan. The shadows angle and stretch and shift on the wall behind it, as if the murti is moving, alive. Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire. I see a graven image gravid with faith. It is a true idol. It is a true idea. What have we done wrong?

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