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Worshipping the Elephant-Headed God, Ganesh
Indians have celebrated this festival for hundreds of years in their homes, especially in the Deccan and in the South. In the British colonial times, the popular festival was also given a patriotic colour by the nationalist leader Lokmanya Tilak, as a festival to celebrate on a community-basis. This was to circumvent draconian British laws preventing Indians from congregating in public (to plot the downfall of the colonial rulers)!
It is a fallacy that the Bhadrapad Ganesh festival celebrates the birth of Ganesh, which is in fact celebrated on Ganesh Jayanti, the fourth day of the bright half of the lunar month, Magh (about February / March).
Clay Ganesh idols painted with soluble dyes are brought into village homes with great fanfare and rigorous ritual, to ensure that the chief deity of auspicious beginnings, who controls all hindrances to human effort, is pleased to grant his boons for wellbeing of the entire household. People are careful to ensure that conflict and depressions are warded off at this time, and the festivities bring an aura of peace, harmony and blessings to the environs. The festival is thus often seen to mark a closure to grudges, animosity and grief, bringing in its wake a transition to positivity and renewed hope.
The rituals are exacting, and they must be performed to perfection by the Brahmin priests, since this is the Lord of Knowledge and Vedic Ritual! For children, it is a time of holidays and partaking of the epicurean pleasures served to the Lord of All Arts, which also include the culinary! Modak is the flavour of the season, the Lord’s favourite, with delicately petalled, plantain leaf-baked white domes made of steamed rice flour, like bonbons, with a mouth-watering filling of sweet jaggery melted in a grated coconut mix.
Apart from the naivedyam served to the honoured guests, little offerings of food borne on plantain leaf are set aside for the mouse, in honour of the mount of Lord Ganesh. Then again, it is also a feast of the senses imbued with a great devotional flavour, ranging from colourful displays of glittering decorative exhibits and floor rangolis.
The frequencies of Ganesh as the primordial divinity are supposed to be the most potent in the earthly realms. He is the first in order of ritual worship; all other deities must follow. The vibrational correspondence of the deity Ganesh is with the figure and mula mantra (root chant) of AUM, and in Vedic hymns, He is ever - present in the Muladhar Chakra.
Ganesh has the closest correspondence with the Earth element, as also with the fiery red planet Mars. Both are sons of earth: Ganesh as son of the benign earth mother Parvati, daughter of the Himalayas; and Mars as Bhowm, son of Bhumi or Bhuma devi, simply put, Earth! Ganesh also has a strong esoteric martial aspect, in fighting the demons to protect the earth, and his assigned weekly day of worship is Tuesday, governed by Mars.
In the lunar almanac, every fourth day of the lunar fortnight is celebrated as Vinayak Chaturthi, dedicated to Lord Ganesh; in the dark half, it is known as sankashti, observed with fasting. Food is eaten only after moonrise, after offering the Lord his favourite modaks. If this fourth day happens to coincide with a Tuesday, it is known as the angaraki, in association with Mars, a rare opportunity to seek the Grace of Shri Ganesh.
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