Interesting Sculptures - Dancing Nataraja Of Badami cave temple

Badami-Aihole-Pattadakallu is the ancient architectural wonder in Karnataka. If you are lover of history, and ancient architecture, you should visit this place. You can read more about Badami-Aihole-Pattadakallu, in this article.
Badami is famous for the cave temple located there. This has four cave temples, situated one above the other.

I have already shared about an interesting sculpture carved on the  pillars of the cave temple in one of my earlier posts.
In this post sharing about another interesting sculpture. The first cave temple has the sculptures related to Hindu God Shiva. This sculpture is located to the right side to the entrance of the temple.

 

You can see Lord Shiva in the form of Nataraja (King of Dance-literal meaning), beside a small idol of Lord Ganesha(Son of Lord Shiva)

Here is the closer view:

 

It can be observed that, there are totally 18 arms, 9 on each sides. The significance of this sculpture is  - each combination of the hands represents Mudras of Bharatanatyam ( a form of Indian classical dance). Totally 81 mudras are depicted in this sculpture.

 And Lord Ganesha is enjoying the dance I guess ! Or is he trying to learn the steps?

Love , laugh and live the life to the fullest,

-Ranjana