Ganesha or Ganapati as he is more commonly known is the most worshipped god in India, though he may not be the most popular. Now that is only apparently a paradox. Ganesha holds a unique position in the religious culture of India, a position that has no parallel in any other religion. Any ceremony, ritual, puja or new undertaking has to begin with invoking the power of Ganapati first, otherwise it is regarded as futile. Hence he is worshipped almost constantly round the clock as it were, though he may not be the ishta devta, the chosen personal god of the person so worshipping. In the late 20th century however, Ganapati has suddenly become one of the five most important deities actually in popular worship, and collecting images of Ganapati in various materials became a popular hobby in its own right independent of any religious feeling.

Ganapati is however not a Vedic god, not by any means. The tradition that he has to be invoked before anything is commenced is hardly two thousand years old, if that, and it has become set as an unchallenged rule for only about a thousand years. Ganapati is a Pauranic God, a god always of the common people and of the artisans who delighted on sculpting and painting such an incongruity, such a resolution of paradox. For he is neither animal nor human, being more like the gods of ancient Egypt than anything in the usual Hindu tradition. He is not beautiful in any conventional sense, quite the contrary, yet every Hindu feels a surge of affection when he gazes upon this clearly impossible figure. That Ganapati has been a successful Indian export is not so well known, but from Afghanistan to Japan, you can find ancient idols that testify to his peculiar popularity. Burma, Cambodia, Java, China, Vietnam, wherever the Hindus traveled, so too did their beloved Vighneshwara, the destroyer of obstacles.

Actually Ganapati, like Laxmi and Kubera, is a figure of the Yaksha religion. This was one of the two ancient religions (the other being the Naga) that simultaneously coexisted with the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, and when they finally faded away, their beliefs and iconography was seamlessly merged into the surviving religions. (I will explore this point about the Yakshas and Nagas in another article for the gods and goddesses section of the website and try to bring out a fascinating aspect of Ancient Indian religion and how it survives unrecognized into the modern world.) The Yaksha were the much more dominant, for their chief figures survive as independent and respected members of the Hindu pantheon. Ganesha is the supreme example of such borrowing, even more so than Laxmi, the goddess of wealth in modern Hinduism.

The word Ganesha or Ganapati is probably of pauranic origin, not his original Yaksha name which seems to have been Dantin, the tusked one. Ganesha and Ganapati mean the same thing - the Lord of the Ganas, who are the army-cum-attendants-cum-servants-cum-devotees of the great god Shiva. His special position even as he is being clearly absorbed into another religion thus remains constant. Even if he is nominally inferior to Shiva, he is first amongst the rest. There are no less than eighteen major versions of the origin of Ganesha and only Ganapati knows how many popular folk versions. Most of the sorties are concerned with explaining his unusual physical appearance, so much at variance with the ideal and elegant torsos preferred by the Indian imagination.

The usual story is such a bloodcurdling oedipal myth, that it is only now that it is even beginning to be accepted as such. This is the normal version. Shiva, holding all conventions of proper behavior at naught with magnificent yogic contempt used to be a sore trial for his wife Parvati who was a princess and used to more genteel modes of interaction. She never had any privacy, for Shiva came and went out of their palace as his meditative whims dictated. One day he was so distracted that he brushed aside all the guards and Parvati's personal attendants and blundered into the spot where she was bathing. In ancient India` bathing was performed in an open inner courtyard, not behind walls and she was quite upset at this intrusion. Shiva had a good laugh over it, for he genuinely could not see what was the problem, such issues being totally alien to his simple and straightforward mind. Parvati, however, had the bluest blood in all India, she was the daughter of the Himalayas, as well as the Divine Mother and she was determined such incidents would not occur again. Out of the sandalwood paste on her body she fashioned the figure of a tough young boy and breathed life into him.

She armed this young hellion with a stout club and told him to not let anybody enter the house without her permission. When Shiva returned he found the way barred by a very firm young man. It is a measure of Shiva's nature that he calmly accepted Parvati had been creating a son, but he did not see why that meant he was in the divine equivalent of the doghouse. Parvati became stubborn, she did not want to feel bullied and the youth announced that he did not know any Shiva but he had only The Mother's instructions. Shiva's ganas lost their temper and attacked the boy. The ganas are the most fearsome warriors in the universe and if there is anyone who is not a fearful and terrible sight to behold it is entirely by accident and oversight. The young boy thrashed this army and when the other gods began to take a part in the battle, he thrashed them too. The situation was clearly an impossible one. The boy would not fall in a fair fight, and the reputations of the gods were in tatters. Vishnu, the great Trickster, then suggested the unchivalrous but effective stratagem, of engaging him from the front while Shiva sneaked up from behind and cut off his head. This was done.

Now Parvati was in a terrible rage and the temper of the Mother of the Universe is not lightly put aside. Vishnu, silver-tongued as befits a Trickster, offered a compromise. As the boy existed he was too troublesome to be revived. But if she accepted a changed form and a position of primacy amongst the gods, well he could do something. The first living thing to the north, direction of new beginnings, they came across was an elephant, so they cut off that head and attached it to the boy's neck. The boy became the leader of the ganas as befitted the only person who had ever conquered them, and from that day on, his was the first name to be invoked before beginning anything. To ensure that there would be no slip-ups, the gods made him Vighneshwara, the Lord of Obstacles. If you prayed to him, the obstacles would disappear. If you did not, well then he would place them in your path till your memory was jogged.