The doctrine does not invent restraint. It inherits it. Three Tier-A observations, one Tamil Śaiva icon, and one downstream reception — read together, they are the same posture.
The Chola imperial expansion into the island (11th c. CE) did not demolish Anuradhapura's Buddhist establishment; monastic institutions continued.
Spencer, The Politics of Expansion (1976 / 1983); Dehejia, Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India (Royal Academy / Mapin, 2006); Sivasundaram, Islanded (Chicago, 2013).
Tirukkuṟaḷ Chapter 31 (Veḵkāmai · restraint from anger) is one of the oldest published Tamil ethical positions on power and restraint (c. 5th c. CE).
Tiruvaḷḷuvar, Tirukkuṟaḷ, ch. 31; Zvelebil, Tamil Literature (Brill, 1975).
The iconography of the Ānanda-tāṇḍava reads saṃhāra as flame HELD in the palm — release contained, not annihilation scattered.
Kaimal, 'Shiva Nataraja: Shifting Meanings of an Icon,' Art Bulletin 81/3 (1999); Smith, The Dance of Śiva (Cambridge, 1996); Younger, The Home of Dancing Śivaṉ (Oxford, 1995).
The Cit-Sabhā at Tillai (Chidambaram) is the ritual home of the Ānanda-tāṇḍava. This is where the doctrine's grammar was first spoken in stone and bronze. Tamil Śaiva liturgy names the acts before any Sanskrit corpus fully codifies them. (See /divine-science/nataraja for iconography; /case/the-node for the material Indian-Ocean floor.)
A two-metre Naṭarāja bronze was installed at CERN on 18 June 2004 with the plaque "A Symbol of Shakti" (CDS record CERN-HI-0406038). The doctrine notes this as evidence of the icon's reception outside its ritual home. It is not evidence about the icon. The bronze does not lose Chidambaram by standing in Geneva. Analogy · not identity.