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Gaṇeśa

The elephant-headed remover of obstacles, worshipped first, before every beginning, by nearly everyone.

Gaṇeśa is the tradition’s great democrat: the deity invoked before undertakings by Śaivas, Vaiṣṇavas, Buddhists and Jains alike. Elephant-headed, round-bellied, riding a mouse, he carries an axe (to cut attachment), a rope (to pull the seeker forward), and, in one broken tusk, the story of his own scholarship, writing the Mahābhārata as Vyāsa dictated it.

Why first

Mythologically the son of Śiva, honoured before all hosts (gaṇa), Gaṇeśa receives the first offering of every pūjā. Students whisper his mantra before examinations; writers, before the first word. His festival, Gaṇeśa Caturthī, fills Maharashtra’s streets with clay images each rainy season.

Related entries

  • Pūjā , The daily ritual of welcome, inviting the deity as an honoured guest, offering what one would offer a beloved visitor.
  • Śiva , The ascetic on the mountain and the dancer at the centre of the universe, the deity of destruction-as-renewal, yoga's own patron.

Mentioned in

References

  • Gaṇapati Atharvaśīrṣa (the classic Gaṇapati hymn)
  • Gaṇeśa, the remover of obstacles , standard references in the Purāṇic corpus