The actual Hindu God Ganesh Signifies Wisdom and SuccessPosted by Briggs Collier on April 25th, 2021 A couple of years ago I finally met someone I had known for many years, but only on the Internet. I noticed that she always wore exactly the same pendant, a strange figure of a guy having an elephants head and wondered why such an elegant lady would be so attached to what looked like a funny plastic figure. When I finally got round to asking her about any of it, I was ashamed of my ignorance. It had been the first time I had heard of the Hindu God Ganesh. To a western eye, Ganesh looks really strange; an almost comical figure who includes a man's body (and a paunch) an elephants head, four hands (at least), only 1 tusk, and spends his time riding around on a very small mouse. But Ganesh isn't a clown and to see him as a joke would be to misunderstand centuries of belief and symbolism. He is highly revered in the Hindu religion, where the same attributes, looked at in a different way, make him the embodiment of wisdom and learning, the patron of science and the arts, the remover of obstacles, and hence called on at the start of every enterprise because the god of success. It was as such that my pal wore her pendant, not plastic but very old jade, a talisman made to bring success to every one of her ventures. The Hindu religion is quite old and practiced over a wide area, so it isn't surprising there are many stories about the origin of the Hindu gods. Generally in most Hindu traditions, Ganesh may be the son of Shiva and his wife Parvati. Hindu's recognize four major denominations all of whom regard Parvati and Shiva as important, but for the Shakta, Parvati, whose name means 'she of the mountains' is the Supreme Being and Shiva is her consort. It had been Parvati who created Ganesh. Parvati is thought to value her privacy, so one day when she wished to bathe and had no-one around to help keep watch for her, Parvati used turmeric paste to produce a boy. She gave him life and asked him to be sure to guard her privacy, and this is how Ganesh was created, without the real intervention from his 'father' Shiva. When Shiva returned home he wanted to go inside, but Ganesh followed his Mother's instructions and stopped him. There was a battle, and Shiva, who is Lord of Destruction, cut off the boy's head. When she saw what had happened, Parvati's anger knew no bounds. She demanded that Shiva amend the situation, so he sent his servants to bring back the head of the initial living thing they found. The head belonged to an elderly elephant that they had found in the same way he was going to die, so Ganesh was brought back to life and given the elephant's head. By association Ganesh is undoubtedly strong, affectionate and loyal. This type of large head can only be a sign of wisdom and intelligence, while the huge ears are used to carefully separate the nice and the bad also to listen to the requests of supplicants. Just like the elephant Ganesh is powerful if provoked, but loving when shown kindness. Unlike most elephants, Ganesh has only one tusk. There are many stories of the explanation for the broken tusk; the most used is that Ganesh was given the job of recording the epic tale known as the Mahabharata. At one point his pen failed and rather than stop, Ganesh removed his tusk and carried on, showing he was ready to make a sacrifice to obtain knowledge. read more , less poetic stories say that the tusk was removed by a villain who stole it to make ivory earrings for beautiful ladies. It's not always immediately obvious that statues of Ganesh have four (and sometimes more) hands. One is normally shown in abhaya pose that's organized with palm out and fingers pointing upwards, as the second holds a sweet, a symbol of the inner self. Another two hands will usually include a goad and a noose, the former used to prod followers along the path of truth, while the latter represents the snare of earthly desires. At his feet most statues of Ganesh show a mouse, his traditional steed. The mouse is the symbol of the intellect, wandering in and out, but tamed by the higher power of the whole. Many devotees believe that the strange shape of the main one tusked elephant headed God mirrors the symbol AUM, symbolic which represents the primeval sound that was the initial thing to be created and that the rest of the universe arose. This can be the symbol which is commonly used to represent all of Hinduism and its beliefs. Even though Hindu religion has four main denominations, all worship Ganesh, whose image can be found across India, Nepal and many areas of china and taiwan. For Buddhists, Ganesh appears as the god Vinayaka and is usually shown dancing. His statues come 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 there are temples to Ganesh and in Thailand his position as remover of obstacles and patron of the arts imply that you will find a ceremony where offerings are created to Ganesh before any movie or TV series starts shooting. Indonesia is really a Muslim country, but even there Ganesh is revered and his image can be found in many Cambodian temples. Yet despite spreading over the Eastern world Ganesh was unknown in Europe until relatively recently, though some scholars, commenting on a statue of Ganesh where he could be shown with two heads (one of an elephant one of a man) facing in opposite directions have likened the image compared to that of Janus, the two headed God of the Romans, but no actual link between your two has been found.Like it? Share it! More by this author |