Nataraaj.. 22.09.2012

Nataraaj statue, at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) Geneva, Switzerland is the world's largest particle accelerator, on the France-Switze

rland and border. The Indian government gifted a 6 feet Nataraja statue to CERN in 2004. It portrays Shiva's dance of creation and destruction, much like the dance of fundamental particles that generates and destructs matter and energy in the universe in various forms. A plaque next to the Shiva statue captures the contemporary connotation of the metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance from Fritj of Capra's book "Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures, but is also the very essence of inorganic matter and for the modern physicists, then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.

॥ ॐ नमः शिवाय ॥