While I agree with all of the points that Kaimal makes, I was most interested in her examination of the way in which a single writer -- indeed, a single essay -- can have such a dramatic influence on the way in which art is seen. Coomaraswamy's writing seems to me -- admittedly many generations after he wrote it -- to be rather underwhelming, short on substance and long on rather overly elaborate style. His vision of India is startlingly -- given his own biography -- Orientalist and certainly Romantic. His vision of Shiva (and therefore one might guess of India) is in some ways an overly subtle one: By emphasizing the way in which Hindu thought and iconography posits the constant and simultaneous creation-destruction-recreation of the universe, Coomaraswamy is emphasizing the most metaphysical aspects of Hinduism. This is...
In other words, he projected onto Shiva's image the image that he wished to see in his own mirror. (Of course, it is not quite this simple, but there is certainly much of this in it.)
Kaimal emphasizes that Shiva Nataraja should be seen in large part as the Lord of Dance stamping his way through the ashes of cremated bodies. Seen from one perspective, those ashes are a sign of both destruction and creation as souls change their housings in the karmic dance and so seem to support Coomaraswamy's interpretation. But Kaimal convincingly argues that the Chola Shiva leaned more heavily toward the size of destruction, a god more drunk on death than thirsting for rebirth.
