Decoding Ganesha

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Decoding Ganesha

Hindustan Times

Devdutt Pattanaik

September 02, 2008

 

Just three days before Ganesh Chaturthi, before we call out

Ganapati bappa morya, Devdutt Pattanaik tells us the tale of

Ganesha, our most lovable god.

 

The rainy season is considered an inauspicious time. The sun

is making its journey south; the days are becoming shorter

and the nights colder; the earth is wet, worms and snakes

are wriggling out, the walls are damp, and there is moss in

every corner... it is Chaturmaas, the four months when

sages don't travel, stay indoors and tell the stories of gods.

 

As the rains start to wane, the earth covers herself in green,

and brings forth her son, the one who will remove all

obstacles as the seasons begin their march towards harvest

time. That son is Ganesha, Gauri's Ganesha, seated on her

lap, corpulent, elephant-headed, cute and powerful.

 

Ganesha is Gana-esha, foremost of Shiva's Ganas. While

the rest of the Ganas - creatures known as Yakshas and

Pramathas and Bhutas - are fearsome and forbidding with

their unusual misshapen forms, loved, included and

understood only by Shiva, their ascetic-master, Ganesha has

been able to delight us all - inspiring artists to create and

recreate him in various shapes, each one joyful in mood and

awe-inspiring in expanse.

 

If Shiva has his way, there would be no Ganesha, no

harvests, no obstacles, no world... just snow-covered

desolate peaks where everyone meditates in silence. He is

the destroyer - destroying the world through indifference.

 

But the Goddess, Shakti, will have none of it. She wants the

ascetic to open his eyes, pay attention, engage with things

worldly. As Kali, she dances naked and as Gauri she prays

fervently, forcing Shiva, the hermit, to become her husband,

Shankara, the householder. This happens in Shiv-ratri before

the rains, before the passionate nights of summer, in spring,

after the winter mists have parted and Holi has been

celebrated.

 

And then, soaked in rain, she asks him to give her a child -

for through children is death conquered and continuity

assured. But a much-married Shiva does not see the point of

children. " Why produce children and accept mortality? Why

not renounce the flesh and embrace the immortal soul? " he

wonders. The compassionate Goddess explains, " Because

life is soul and flesh, stillness and movement. Living is about

dealing with dying, about celebrating this realm of cradles

and crematoriums, of frustration and excitement, of laughter

and tears, of growth, of discovery. It is this tempest of the

sea that makes us yearn for the tranquility of the mountains. "

 

Shiva does not understand. He shuts his eyes and

withdraws. Not one to give up, the Goddess collects the

rubbings of the turmeric paste she has anointed herself with

and moulds herself a doll and places it on a betel leaf - and

behold, a son is born, Vinayaka, Vi-nayaka, the one born

without a husband. And she loves him. And asks him to

guard the entrance to her cave. He becomes the lord of the

Muladhara Chakra, the base chakra, the guardian who will

lead us on that occult journey called Tantra, that reveals the

mysteries of the Goddess.

 

When Shiva returns to the cave of the Goddess he is

surprised to find a doorkeeper, one who does not recognise

him and one who he does not recognise. The guardian god

blocks the path of the ascetic, an obstacle separating God

from Goddess. For the first time, the self-contained Shiva

experiences rage and restlessness and even a little bit of

jealousy. A fight follows in which Vinayaka is beheaded.

 

Shiva experiences momentary triumph followed by guilt

when the Goddess wails at the sight of her beheaded son.

Sorrow turns to fury: Shakti demands that her son be

resurrected, else Gauri will become Kali and spread her

tongue and swallow everything in a single gulp.

 

Shaken, Shiva orders his Ganas to fetch the first beast they

encounter in the northern direction. Why northern? North is

the direction of resurrection, growth, permanence, as against

the south, which according to Vastu, is the realm of Yama,

of Rakshasas, of death, decay and destruction. The Ganas

encounter Airavata, the bull-elephant of Indra, the rain-god.

His head is placed on the severed neck of Vinayaka and the

boy is resurrected. This 'twice-born' son is named Ganapati

by Shiva, the lord of the Ganas, and his son.

 

The arrival of Ganesha made Shiva feel various emotions;

without realising it, the indifferent ascetic had grown attached

to the Goddess, and was not willing to share her with

anyone. By killing and resurrecting the son of Gauri, Shiva

had become a father, a member of society, and a true

householder. Ganesha thus represents the union of material

wisdom (the Goddess) and spiritual ideal (Shiva). His form

unites worldly wealth (pot-belly) and divine power

(elephant). It enhances wealth generation (serpents) and

stops wealth decay (rats).

 

It is not without meaning that Ganesha's head is that of

Indra's elephant. Indra is the rain-god. The cutting of his

elephant's head marks the end of the rain and the beginning

of a great harvest. Incidentally Indra according to Vastu, is

lord of the East. Thus while travelling north, the Ganas found

a creature of the east, making Ganesha the lord of the north-

east, the most auspicious corner of the house, the corner of

the gods, the corner of Ishan, who is Shiva.

 

In art, when Shiva is half a woman, the Goddess makes up

the left half of his form while he retains the right half. On the

left is the heart, of intuition, of feeling. The right side, the

opposite side, is the side of the head, of thinking, of the

intellect and of the soul. When Ganesha's trunk points to his

heart, he is closer to his mother, the sensual Goddess, who

embraces material reality. But when it points to the right, he

is closer to his father, the intellectual mendicant who wants to

shut his eyes to the world. Ganesha's image with trunk

pointing to his heart is popular in households because it

shows a Ganesha comfortable with the world of matter,

senses and emotions. Ganesha with his trunk curled to his

right, is more ascetic in nature, hence not kept inside homes,

and preferably enshrined in temples; the most famous of

these is Mumbai's Siddhi Vinayak.

 

The two tusks of Ganesha represent aggressive masculinity;

this is tempered by breaking one of the tusks, to write the

story of man - the itihasa called Mahabharata, a story of

passion, of human weaknesses. All this shows a compassion

and consideration for imperfect man.

 

In Ganesha's hand is a modaka which is essentially a sweet

mixture packed in a conical pack made using steamed flour.

It looks like a bag of money. Its roots are in ancient statues

of Yakshas, especially of their king Kubera, who holds such

money purses and is the guardian of treasures. Ganesha has

many other Gana or Yaksha characteristic. He has the pot

belly, very much like the Laughing Buddha. It is the symbol

of prosperity. The snake wrapped around it protects the

prosperity and ensures its renewal, much as the snake

renews its skin at regular interval. Ganesha's rat may be

depicted in films as a cute mouse but it is a bandicoot, a

fearsome pest that is impossible to control. It symbolises the

problems of our lives that only Ganesha, lord of the

threshold, the remover of obstacles, can keep out.

 

When a bull elephant is in heat during mating season, it sheds

a fluid from its temples; this ichor is called mada in Sanskrit

meaning the fluid of sensory intoxication from which comes

the word Madan or the god of love and Madira, the

Hindustani word for wine. This makes the elephant the

symbol of sensuality. In folklore it is said that when an

elephant stays celibate, the retained semen transforms into a

jewel that sprouts from its head. It is the symbol of Siddha,

power earned through sensory control. Ganesha's head thus

is both the symbol of sensuality and sensory control because

one is not sure if Ganesha is married or single.

 

A Tamil story informs us that Ganesha refused to marry

because he felt no woman was more beautiful than his

mother. A Bengali story informs us that no woman wanted to

marry Ganesha because he had an elephant head. So his

mother got him married to the banana plant, an ancient

fertility symbol, who can be seen wrapped in a saree

standing next to him in Durga pandals.

 

In Maharashtra, he is said to have two wives: Riddhi and

Siddhi, goddesses of material and intellectual growth.

Scholars have traced these two wives to Kubera, the king of

Yakshas, once again reconfirming that Ganesha has his roots

in these ancient fertility gods. These two goddesses are more

popular as Lakshmi and Saraswati explaining why Ganesha

is often shown with these two goddesses. In Bengal,

Lakshmi and Saraswati are Ganesha's sisters, children of

Durga. In the rest of India, the relationship does not matter.

What matters is the symbolic meaning - Ganesha removes

the obstacles to economic and intellectual growth.

 

Thus various symbols with potent metaphysical themes

telescope into the form and narrative that is Ganesha. They

speak a profound truth in a language that bypasses the

rational mind and connects intuitively with the soul. It is this

silent language that we - a generation bombarded with

unsubtle 'Breaking News' - are longing perhaps to hear.

That is why we are so drawn to him, going to the extent of

turning him into celluloid cartoons and plastic China-made

dashboard displays. And Ganesha does not mind, so long as

we appreciate the realm of his mother, and aspire for the

realm of his father.

 

Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik (http://www.devdutt.com) writes and

lectures extensively on the relevance of sacred stories,

symbols, and rituals in modern times.

 

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