A few years ago I at long last met the person I’d known for many years, but just on the internet. I noticed that the woman often donned the same pendant, an odd shape with an elephant’s head. I wondered why such a tasteful lady would be so attached to what looked like a funny plastic figure. When I ultimately was able to ask her about it, I was embarrassed with my ignorance. It had been the first time I’d discovered the Hindu God Ganesh.
To a western eye, Ganesh seems extremely strange; an almost comical figure who has a man’s body (and a bit of a paunch) an elephant’s head, 4 hands (at least), just one tusk, who spends his time traveling around on a very small mouse. However Ganesh isn’t a clown and to view him as a joke would be to misunderstand centuries of belief and symbolism. He is highly revered in the Hindu faith, where the same characteristics, viewed in a different way, make him the embodiment of wisdom and learning, the patron of scientific disciplines and the arts, the remover of hurdles, and therefore called on at the start of each and every venture as the god of success. It was as such that this individual donned her Ganesh necklace, not plastic but very old jade, a talisman designed to create a favorable outcome to each of her undertakings. Like many other Hindu statues and talismans, a Ganesha statue represents specific aspirations of a productive life.
The Hindu religion is very old and observed over a wide region, so it isn’t really unexpected that we now have several stories about the source of the Hindu gods. In most Hindu customs, Ganesh is the son of Shiva and his wife Parvati. Hindu’s acknowledge four major denominations all of who regard Parvati and Shiva as essential, but for the Shakta, Parvati, whose name means ’she of the mountains’ is the Supreme Being and Shiva is her consort. Legend says it was Parvati who spawned Ganesh.
Parvati is said to value her privacy, so one day when she wanted to bathe and had no-one around to keep watch for her, Parvati employed turmeric paste to generate a boy. The goddess afforded him life and asked him to protect her security, and this is how Ganesh was born, with no real intervention coming from his ‘father’ Shiva.
When Shiva returned home he sought to go inside, but Ganesh obeyed his Mother’s directions and stopped him. There was a battle, and Shiva, who is regarded as Lord of Destruction, chopped off the child’s head.
When she discovered what had occurred, Parvati’s wrath knew no bounds. She commanded that Shiva amend the situation, so he sent his servants to return with the head of the very first living thing they found. The head belonged to an elderly elephant they’d located just as he was about to perish, so Ganesh was brought back again and given the elephant’s head.
By association Ganesh is regarded as formidable, loving and devoted. A very sizeable head can only be a sign of knowledge and cleverness, and the massive ears are used to carefully distinguish the good and the bad and to hear the requests of supplicants. Like the elephant Ganesh is dangerous if provoked, but loving when shown kindness. Unlike most elephants, Ganesh has just one tusk.
There are numerous stories of the reason for the broken tusk; the most common is Ganesh was given the job of recording the epic account known as the Mahabharata. At one point his pen failed and rather then stop, Ganesh removed his tusk and carried on, demonstrating he was willing to make a sacrifice to acquire knowledge. Other, less poetic stories say that the tusk was removed by a villain who stole it to create ivory ear-rings for breathtaking women.
It’s not always instantly evident that a Ganesh statue has four (and sometimes more) arms. Some may be shown in abhaya pose that is held up with hand out and fingers directed upwards, while the second holds a sweet, a symbol of the inner self. The other two hands will most likely contain a goad and a noose, the former being used to prod followers along the path of truth, while the latter signifies the snare of earthly desires. At his feet most statues of Ganesh show a mouse, his classic steed. The mouse is the symbol of the intellect, roaming in and out, but tamed by the greater power of the whole.
A number of devotees think that the strange form of the one tusked elephant headed God mimics the symbol AUM, a symbol that represents the primeval sound that was the very first thing to be formed and from which the remainder of the world arose. This is actually the symbol that is commonly used to signify all Hinduism and its beliefs.
Although the Hindu religion has 4 primary denominations, all worship Ganesh, whose representation is found throughout India, Nepal and many areas of the Far East. For Buddhists Ganesh looks like the god Vinayaka and is commonly displayed dancing. His statues appear in Nepal and Tibet. In Japan he is seen as a minor god and young people call on him when looking for success in love. Throughout Malaysia, Java, Bali and Borneo you will find temples to Ganesh as well as in Thailand. There his position as remover of obstacles and patron of the arts mean that there is a service where offerings are made to Ganesh before any movie or TV series starts shooting.
Indonesia is a Muslim region, however even there Ganesh is adored and his image can be found in many Cambodian temples. Yet in spite of spreading throughout the Eastern world Ganesh was not known in Europe until fairly recently, though some scholars, commenting on a sculpture of Ganesh where he’s shown with two heads (one of an elephant one of a man) facing in opposite directions have likened the image to that of Janus, the two headed God of the Romans, but no actual link between the two have been identified.
Whatever your view on the gods from the east or of the ancients, their sculpture and related symbolism are always thought provoking. However we view something, other nationalities often saw it differently; one reason museum quality statues and other artifacts make fascinating and artistic conversation pieces for any home.
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