The Shiva Tandava Stotra is a Sanskrit hymn to Shiva and the fierce tandava he dances, and tradition attributes it to Ravana, the king of Lanka. In the Uttara Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, Ravana lifts and shakes Shiva's mountain; Shiva presses it down with his big toe, and Ravana praises him with hymns until Shiva sets him free, names him Ravana and gives him the sword Chandrahasa. Tradition holds that this is the hymn he sang. It runs to seventeen verses, fewer in some editions.
Its opening verse pictures the dance: the Ganga pours from Shiva's matted hair over his neck, a garland of serpents hangs there, and his damaru sounds damad damad damad. Image crowds upon image — the crescent moon on his head, the fire on his brow that burned Kamadeva, his delight in Parvati — in sounds that echo their subject, dhagad dhagad for the fire and dhimid dhimid for the mridanga drum. Two verses hail him as the one who cut down the three cities, Daksha's sacrifice, Andhaka and death itself. Near the close the singer asks when he will look with an equal eye on a stone and a splendid bed, a friend and a foe, and when he will live in a hollow by the Ganga, repeating the name of Shiva.
Its closing verse calls it the song of the ten-headed one and sets its recitation at the end of worship, at pradosha, the evening twilight. The scene behind it, Ravana shaking Mount Kailasa, is carved in the Kailasa temple at Ellora, near Grishneshwar. In this collection, Shiva dances as Nataraja at Chidambaram, and Ravana is remembered at Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar and at Gokarna, each held to be where the linga he was carrying to Lanka came to rest.