Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

This year, tele­vi­sion im­ages from In­dia high­light­ed on a night­ly ba­sis, the great fes­ti­val ho­n­our­ing the Hin­du god Lord Ganesh. His im­age is that of an ele­phant with a bro­ken tusk and Hin­dus through­out the world wor­ship that im­age with great glam­our and fer­vour.

In Trinidad, the Hin­du pop­u­la­tion is al­so heav­i­ly in­volved in the Ganesh fes­ti­val. In most Hin­du vil­lages and tem­ples, ten nights of cel­e­bra­tions will take place and the Ma­ha Sab­ha records a large cross sec­tion of Hin­du par­tic­i­pa­tion.

Ganesh Chaturthi al­so known as Vinaya­ka Chaturthi or Ganesh Ut­sav is the Hin­du fes­ti­val which cel­e­brates the oc­ca­sion of Lord Ganesh's, birth­day.Lord Ganesh is sym­bol­ised as the god of wis­dom, pros­per­i­ty, aus­pi­cious­ness and good for­tune.

Ganesh Chaturthi is cel­e­brat­ed on the fourth day of the Shuk­la Pak­sha (wax­ing phase of moon), gen­er­al­ly in the month of Au­gust or Sep­tem­ber and con­tin­ues for 10 days and ends on the 14th day of the month. This year Ganesh cel­e­bra­tions be­gin to­day and ends on Sep­tem­ber 27.

Many months be­fore com­mence­ment of the fes­ti­val, artis­tic clay mod­els of Lord Gane­sha are made for sale by spe­cial­ly skilled ar­ti­sans. They are beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed and de­pict Lord Ganesh in var­ied pos­es. The Poo­ja shops that sell these im­ages lo­cal­ly are em­pha­sis­ing use of en­vi­ron­ment friend­ly ma­te­ri­als like clay.

The fes­ti­val starts with the in­stal­la­tion of these Ganesh im­ages in Hin­du tem­ples.They are dec­o­rat­ed spe­cial­ly for the fes­ti­val, ei­ther by us­ing dec­o­ra­tive items like flower gar­lands, lights etc, or are theme-based dec­o­ra­tions, which de­pict re­li­gious themes or cur­rent events.

The Pan­dit, with the chant­i­ng of mantras, in­vokes the pres­ence of Ganesh us­ing the mur­ti as a chan­nel, or body for the en­er­gy of Shri Ganesh.This rit­u­al is called the Pranapratish­htha or in­fu­sion of life cer­e­mo­ny.

Co­conut, jig­gery, 21 blades of dur­va grass and red flow­ers are of­fered. The mur­ti (im­age) is anoint­ed with red unguent, typ­i­cal­ly made of "kumkum" and san­dal­wood paste. Through­out the cer­e­mo­ny, Vedic mantras from the Rig Ve­da, the Gana­p­ati "Athar­va Shir­sha Up­an­ishad," and the Gane­sha "sto­tra" from the Nara­da Pu­rana are chant­ed.

Ganesh is wor­shipped for 10 days and on the 11th day, the im­age is tak­en through the streets in a pro­ces­sion ac­com­pa­nied with danc­ing, singing, and fan­fare to be im­mersed in a riv­er or the sea.This sym­bol­is­es the rit­u­al "see-off" of the Lord in his jour­ney to­wards his abode in "Kailash," while tak­ing away with him the mis­for­tunes of his devo­tees.

All join in this fi­nal pro­ces­sion shout­ing "Gana­p­ati Bap­pa Morya, Pud­hachya Varshi Laukar ya" (O Lord Gane­sha, come again ear­ly next year) and "Ganesh Ma­ha Raj Ki, Jai" (Lord Gane­sha, vic­to­ry is yours).

Af­ter the fi­nal of­fer­ing of co­conuts, flow­ers and cam­phor is made, peo­ple car­ry the mur­ti to the riv­er or sea to im­merse it. Mos­qui­to Creek in south Trinidad, Man­zanil­la and Ma­yaro in the east and Ch­aguara­mas in the north west are favoured ar­eas where this im­mer­sion takes place.Leg­end has it that on Ganesh Chaturthi if any­one looks at the moon, mis­for­tune fol­lows that per­son.

More specif­i­cal­ly the per­son who looks at the moon on Lord Gane­sha's birth­day is false­ly ac­cused of a crime.This leg­end comes from the tale of Lord Gane­sha. On his birth­day Gane­sha, the lit­tle kid, was hap­pi­ly eat­ing all the sweets made by his moth­er.

Af­ter fin­ish­ing the sweets made by her, he went to the places of gods who had in­vit­ed him for a meal. They served Gane­sha the choic­est of sweets. Af­ter eat­ing all of it, Gane­sha's bel­ly grew enor­mous­ly. He did not show his dis­com­fort to those who had in­vit­ed him and con­tin­ued to eat. In the night, Gane­sha could not bear it any­more and had to go out.

Af­ter go­ing a dis­tance, his an­i­mal trans­port could not bear the weight of Gane­sha and tripped over a snake. The con­tents of Gane­sha's stom­ach fell out and Ganesh placed every­thing back in. He picked up the snake and tied it around his stom­ach so that the con­tents would not fall out again.

Wit­ness­ing this sce­nario, the moon found it ex­treme­ly hi­lar­i­ous and start­ed to laugh hys­ter­i­cal­ly. Lord Gane­sha felt in­sult­ed and cursed the moon. But af­ter the moon apol­o­gised, Gane­sha re­vised the pun­ish­ment and said on the oc­ca­sion of his birth­day no one should look at the moon. For the ben­e­fit of devo­tees who ac­ci­den­tal­ly look at the moon, the fol­low­ing tale would help you avert this mis­for­tune.

Satra­jit was giv­en the Sya­man­ta­ka jew­el by Surya (the sun). Sa­ta­jit con­sid­ered the stone to be so pre­cious that he didn't part with it even when Lord Kr­ish­na asked for it. One day Prasana, the broth­er of Satra­jit, went out hunt­ing wear­ing the jew­el. He was killed by a li­on and the li­on took the jew­el as well.

Jam­ba­van (of the Ra­mayana fame) saw the jew­el, killed the li­on and gave the jew­el to his son. When Satra­jit false­ly ac­cused Kr­ish­na of killing his broth­er for the jew­el, Lord Kr­ish­na de­cid­ed to find out the truth. Af­ter days of search­ing, Kr­ish­na found Jam­ba­van's cave and the jew­el.