Vi­jay Ma­haraj

With an ele­phant head, body of a man, the Hin­du God Ganesh, at first ap­pears un­gain­ly, but among Hin­du Gods his pop­u­lar­i­ty abounds. Mur­tis of Gane­sha can be found in tem­ples, homes, mo­tor ve­hi­cles, and on of­fice desks.

The son of Lord Shi­va and God­dess Par­vati is de­pict­ed as hav­ing a pot­bel­lied body, large ears and a trunk.

Lord Ganesh is sym­bol­ised as the God of wis­dom, pros­per­i­ty, aus­pi­cious­ness and good for­tune, re­mover of ob­sta­cles and the granter of wish­es.

Once again, we are blessed with the great fes­ti­val ho­n­our­ing Gane­sha, the im­age of an ele­phant-head­ed God who is wor­shipped through­out the world with glam­our and fer­vour.

Ganesh Chaturthi, al­so known as Vinaya­ka Chaturthi, Ganesh Ut­sav, is the Hin­du fes­ti­val which cel­e­brates the oc­ca­sion of the Lord’s birth­day.

Ganesh Chaturthi is cel­e­brat­ed on the fourth day of the Shuk­la Pak­sha (wax­ing phase of the moon, the pe­ri­od it takes to evolve from a dark moon to be ful­ly il­lu­mi­nat­ed) for ten days and ends on the 14th day of the month. This year, Ganesh cel­e­bra­tions will be­gin on Sep­tem­ber 14th and end on the 25th with Ganesh Vis­ar­jan.

Many months be­fore its com­mence­ment, artis­tic clay mod­els of Lord Gane­sha are made for sale by skilled ar­ti­sans. They are beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed and de­pict Lord Ganesh in var­ied pos­es. The 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 specif­i­cal­ly for the fes­ti­val, ei­ther by us­ing dec­o­ra­tive items like flower gar­lands, lights, etc. or with 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 ten 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.

There are aus­pi­cious days dur­ing Ganesh Ut­sav that should be not­ed:

• Day 1—Mon­day 14th Sep­tem­ber—Ganesh Staphana (in­stal­la­tion—wel­come Lord Ganesh in­to your home).

• Day 2—First full day of wor­ship and of­fer­ings.

•The Ganesh Vis­ar­jan—first full moon—the im­mers­ing of a clay mur­ti of Lord Ganesh in­to rivers, lakes or the sea.

It marks the end of the joy­ous Ganesh Chaturthi fes­ti­val. It is be­lieved that as the mur­ti dis­solves in the wa­ter, Lord Gane­sha takes away the house­hold’s trou­bles and world­ly ob­sta­cles.

In im­ages of Gane­sha, you will find a rat near the foot. Shi­va rides a bull, Par­vati a li­on, but the port­ly Gane­sha moves around on a measly rat. Un­fair and out of place, you may think, but Gane­sha is an in­tel­li­gent God and smart enough to know his lim­i­ta­tions, as the sto­ry proves.

There are many in­ter­pre­ta­tions of Gane­sha’s body; the ele­phant head and body rep­re­sent liv­ing in har­mo­ny with na­ture. His large head rep­re­sents the em­bod­i­ment of wis­dom and un­der­stand­ing; his round bel­ly is seen as the Cos­mos, the snake around his waist is en­er­gy hold­ing Cos­mos to­geth­er. The rat he rides is like the won­der­ing mind that can on­ly be con­trolled un­der the weight of knowl­edge.

Once Par­vati asked her two sons, Gane­sha and Kar­tikeya, to go around the world in a race. Kar­tikeya strut­ted off on his di­vine mode of trans­port, the pea­cock, know­ing well that he would cir­cle the globe faster, but on reach­ing home, he was stunned to learn that his brainy broth­er had beat­en him. Gane­sha had won with­out leav­ing the room. All Gane­sha did was to cir­cle his moth­er and plead en­dear­ing­ly, “You are my world!” which melt­ed Par­vati’s heart.