Shiva — The Destroyer and Creator

He dances in the cremation grounds. He wears a crescent moon in his matted hair, a cobra around his neck, and the river Ganges flowing from his locks. He is the god of destruction — but in Vedic cosmology, destruction is not evil. It is the necessary precondition for creation. Shiva destroys what is old, exhausted, and corrupt so that new life can emerge. His dance — the Tandava — is not a dance of death. It is a dance of transformation. Every ending he brings carries the seed of a beginning. The Nataraja — Shiva as Lord of the Dance — is one of the most philosophically complex images ever made: a god dancing inside a ring of fire, one foot crushing ignorance, one hand pointing toward liberation.

These signs carry the Nataraja, the trident, the third eye, and the river that chose to flow through his hair rather than flood the earth.