Nur durch das Morgentor des Schönen Dringst du in der Erkenntnis Land. 1 “Only through Beauty’s morning-gate Do you press on to the land of Knowledge” Before me on the desk is a small copper cast of Shiva in the avatar Nataraja, Lord of the Dance. If I wish to grasp this modest (in the technical sense) piece of art, I could literally reach out and take it in hand. But this would be apprehension of only the most basic variety. I might extend this literalistic approach by material analysis. Nevertheless, even after exhaustive measurement and quantitative penetration, I would scarcely have scratched the surface of this piece. Metaphorically, the materialistic assay would be akin to seeking the glory of the Bhagavad Gita in the typeface, or the beauty of Tagore’s poetry in his syntax. I might then progress to a more nuanced method of aesthetic appreciation and investigate the mythopoetic lore behind this figure before me; the source, so to speak, of the ore that the artist drew on to cast it. I will read of many figures such as Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. I will learn of the Yuga cycle and the respective roles of the three faces of the Godhead in its progress. Still, however, the copper remains opaque, as it were, even though I now recognise the identity of the subject in the metallic likeness. Next I may contemplate this subject within the context of these myths. As Lord of the Dance, Shiva arrives to redeem Brahma’s weary world. Shiva’s appearance heralds cosmic annihilation; his dance—the tandava—is like a grand Bacchanalian finale. The resonance between Nataraja’s iconic posture and its mythic significance will immediately kindle my imagination. Like a trumpet note, it will reverberate in metaphorical resonance, forming chords of association as I begin to draw analogies from prior experience. Out of the darkness archaic Aegean culture, before the brilliance of the Socratic tradition bleached all philosophy in the fluorescent lights of the rational intellect, the words of Heraclitus sound as we find them recorded on one of his extant fragments: Hades is Dionysus Nataraja is a—I almost say “living”—embodiment of Heraclitus’ pronouncement, since the copper cast before me appears to come to life by the quickening impulse of sympathetic inspiration. Death and dance: they are not two. My imagination now leaps like Shiva! I am reminded of the one-hundred and second chapter of the great American author Herman Melville’s magnum opus, when Ishmael recounts his pilgrimage to an island in the South Pacific to visit the jungle-bound skeleton of a sperm whale: Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging—a gigantic idler! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.