The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (602 page)

dance among the g
p
s is reflected in dance in honour of K
a (e.g.
Caitanya
), visible in the streets today in the Hare Krishna (
International Society …
) movement. See also
GHOST DANCE
;
DENGAKU
.

 
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Dance of Death
or Danse Macabre or Totentanz
.

A defiant reaction, principally in medieval Europe, to the unpredictable but inevitable occurrence of death. It was evoked especially by the spread of bubonic plague in the 14th cent., when sufferers danced in graveyards. Of many illustrations, Holbein's woodcuts, ‘Totentanz’, are particularly well-known. This deliberate confronting of death has a remote parallel in the Buddhist contemplation of death and of the frailties in the body which lead to it: see e.g.
DEVA-D
TA
;
DH
TU-VAVATTH
NA
;
FOUR LAST THINGS
.

 
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