The Five Faces of Doctor Oliphant

[Guest guest]

Heramba is not the only form of Ganesha who has five elephant heads.

There are numerous sculptures and paintings of Ganesha with five heads --

but without Heramba's ten hands (he must make do with the usual four),

and without Heramba's snow-white complexion.

 

Such a portrait is called <Panchamukhi Ganapati> a Five-Faced Ganesha.

It most often represents Ganesha as the Lord over the five elements. The

Hawaii-based Himalayan Academy, fouded by the late Guru Shivaya

Subramunyaswami, uses a Panchamukhi image as the symbol of their answer

to Christmas. Concerned about Hindu children who feel excluded from the

Yuletide gift-giving, the Swami concocted a five day late-December

holiday, in which five cultural qualities would be celebrated, and gifts

exchanged. (The resemblance to the African-American Swahili-based

invented winter holiday of Kwanzaa is oibvious.)

 

I've also seen a small poster of a Ganesha with five trunks (insyead of

five full heads), each trunk spewing a small geyser of water. Floating

on the five jets, and seated in lotus-posture, are minature forms of

Shiva (ash-grey with his topknot), Vishnu (dark blue and in a gold

crown), Brahma (four-faced and dressed in priestly white), the Devi

(dressed in a red and gold sari), and a mustashioed golden Sun-face for

Surya.

 

I suspect this was an attempt by the artist to show that Ganesha was the

source of all five of the acceptable forms of divinity proscribed by

Hindu reformer Shankaraacharya. (The oft-neglected part of the

Trimurthi, Brahma, sitting in for Ganesha himself!)

 

-- Len/ Kalipadma

 

 

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