The Significance of Ganesh in Hindu Culture
A couple of years ago I finally met a person I had known for several years, but just on the internet. I noticed that this person often wore the same pendant, an unusual shape with an elephant’s head. I wondered why such an elegant lady would be so enamored with what appeared to be a lighthearted plastic figure. When I ultimately was able to ask the woman about this, I was ashamed of my lack of knowledge. It was the first time I’d been aware of the Hindu God Ganesh.
To a western eye, Ganesh seems to be very strange; an almost comical figure who’s a male’s body (and a little bit of a paunch) an elephant’s head, 4 hands (at least), a single tusk, who spends his time traveling around on a very small mouse. But Ganesh is not a clown and to see him being a joke would be to misunderstand centuries of belief and symbolism. He’s viewed with reverence in the Hindu faith, where the very same characteristics, looked at in an alternative way, make him the embodiment of knowledge and learning, the patron of scientific discipline as well as the arts, the remover of road blocks, and therefore summoned at the beginning of every undertaking as the god of success. It turned out as such that my friend donned her Ganesh charm, not plastic but very old jade, a talisman designed to convey 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 faith is extremely old and practiced over a broad area, so it isn’t really unexpected there are several tales about the source of the Hindu gods. Generally in most Hindu traditions, Ganesh is the son of Shiva and his wife Parvati. Hindu’s recognize 4 main sects all of who value Parvati and Shiva as significant, but for the Shakta, Parvati, whose name implies ’she of the mountains’ is the Supreme Being and Shiva is her consort. It was Parvati who spawned Ganesh.
Parvati has been said to value her seclusion, so one day when she planned to wash and had no-one nearby to help keep watch for her, Parvati used turmeric paste to create a boy. The goddess gave him life and asked him to protect her security, and this is how Ganesh came to be, without any real intervention from his ‘father’ Shiva.
When Shiva returned home he wanted to go inside, yet Ganesh followed his Mother’s directions and stopped him. There was a battle, and Shiva, who is Lord of Destruction, cut off the child’s head.
When she discovered what had occurred, Parvati’s anger knew no bounds. She commanded that Shiva amend the situation, so he directed his servants to retrieve the head from the first living thing they found. The head belonged to an aged elephant they’d located just as he was going to perish, so Ganesh was brought back to life and given the elephant’s head.
By association Ganesh is regarded as potent, affectionate and loyal. Such a sizeable head can only be a sign of wisdom and cleverness, and the enormous ears are used to very carefully distinguish the good and the bad and to hear the requests of supplicants. Like the elephant Ganesh is powerful if provoked, but loving when shown kindness. Unlike most elephants, Ganesh has only one tusk.
There are many tales of the reason for the shattered tusk; the most famous is Ganesh was given the job of recording the epic account known as the Mahabharata. At one point his pen failed and rather then stopping, Ganesh detached his tusk and carried on, showing he was willing to make a sacrifice to acquire knowledge. Some other, less poetic stories state that the tusk was taken by a villain who stole it to make ivory earrings for lovely women.
It is not always immediately apparent that a Ganesh statue has four (and sometimes more) hands. One is shown in abhaya pose that’s held up with palm out and fingers directed upwards, as the second holds a sweet, a symbol of the inner self. And the second two hands will most likely contain a goad and a noose, the former being used to prod followers down the way of truth, as the latter represents the snare of earthly desires. At his feet most statues of Ganesh show a mouse, his classic steed. The mouse is a symbol of the intellect, wandering in and out, but tamed from the greater power of the whole.
A number of devotees believe the odd shape of the one tusked elephant headed God mirrors the symbol AUM, a symbol that connotes the primeval sound which was the very first thing to be created and from which the rest of the world arose. This is the symbol that is commonly employed to signify all of Hinduism and its beliefs.
Even though the Hindu religion has four major sects, all worship Ganesh, whose image can be found across India, Nepal and many areas of the Far East. For Buddhists Ganesh looks like the god Vinayaka and is usually shown dancing. His statues appear in Nepal and Tibet. In Japan he is seen as a minor god and young adults call on him when searching for success in love. All through Malaysia, Java, Bali and Borneo you will find temples to Ganesh and in Thailand. There his position as remover of obstacles and patron of the arts mean that there’s a ceremony where offerings are made to Ganesh just 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 despite spreading throughout the Eastern world Ganesh was unknown in Europe until relatively recently, though some scholars, commenting on a statue of Ganesh where he’s shown with two heads (one of an elephant one of a man) facing in opposite directions have compared the image to that of Janus, the two headed God of the Romans, but no actual link between the two have been found.
Whatever your own view on the gods from the east or of the ancients, their sculpture and associated symbolism will always be thought provoking. However we look at something, other nationalities usually saw it in another way; one reason why museum quality statues along with other artifacts make fascinating and artistic conversation pieces for any home.

Posted May 18, 2010
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