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Nataraja Ganesh Statue Dancing on Dwarf 25"

Nataraja Ganesh Statue Dancing on Dwarf 25"
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Materials: Lost Wax Method South Indian Bronze

Total Height Including Base: 25 inches

Base Width & Depth: 13 x 8 inches

Weight: 59 pounds

Item # 8bc1

  • Description
  • About Ganesh
  • Care

  • Ganesh is swirling in His father Shiva's dance of destruction and creation; The dance of Lord Nataraja! His large form is perfectly balanced on one foot with all His arms spread out like the rays of the sun. In Ganesh's 16 hands He holds the abhaya mudra, His tusk, an axe, discus, club, knife, elephant goad, arrow, bow, noose, shield, trident, conch, ball of sweets, and a lotus flower. His magnificent trunk is held up in front of his chest and pointed to His left. There is a small bell tied around His trunk. Ganesh dances on a dwarf. The cobra is typically a symbol of Shiva. The cobra symbolizes the Hindu dogma of reincarnation. Their natural process of molting or shedding their skin is symbolic of the human souls transmigration of bodies from one life to another. Ganesh also wears a cobra belt around his vast belly.

  • "In heaven Lord Ganesh will establish the predominance of gods, on earth that of people, in the nether world that of serpents and anti-gods" ~A Hymn from Sri Bhagavat-Tathva~

    The chubby, gentle, wise, elephant-headed Ganesh, or Ganesha, is one of Hinduisms most popular deities. He is the remover of obstacles, the deity whom worshippers first acknowledge when they visit a temple. He is also patron of letters and of learning; he is the legendary scribe who, using his broken tusk, which he often holds, wrote down parts of the Mahabharata epic. Ganesh is usually depicted colored red; he is pot bellied, has one tusk broken, and has four arms that may hold a pasam, a goad, and a pot of rice or sweetmeats. The sweet meats are held in a type of bowl known as a laddus. His appetite for these sweets is legendary and offerings of them are often left at his shrine.
    Statues of Ganesh can be found in most Indian towns. His image is placed where new houses are to be built; he is honored at the start of a journey or business venture, and poets traditionally invoke him at the start of a book.
    A pasam is a triple twine weapon. Each of the three twines represents, arrogance and conceit, Maya - the illusory nature of the real world, ignorance. In Hindu ideology weapons are a viewed as symbolic tools to destroy the ego rather than to cause any type of bloodshed. Goads (or elephant prods) are typically used to direct elephants. Goads are symbolic of how one should steer the soul away from the ignorance and illusions of this earthly world just as a mahout would steer an elephant away from any treacherous path.
    Ganesh's characteristic pot belly is usually bound with a cobra. The cobra is an animal usually associated with Shiva, a reminder that Ganesh is his son. Ganesh is usually shown in sculpture accompanied by or riding a rat. Since rats are seen as being capable of gnawing their way through most things, the rat symbolizes Ganesh's ability to destroy every obstacle. Ganesh's name literally means "Lord of Gana." Ganesh was entrusted by Shiva with the leadership of the ganas, Shiva's dwarfish, rowdy retinue, in compensation for the loss of his human head.
    How Ganesh came to have the head of an elephant is explained in various stories. One account of his birth is that Parvati formed him from the rubbings of her body so that he might stand guard at the door while she bathed. When Siva approached, unaware this was his son, he was enraged at being kept away from his wife and proceeded to lop off the head of Ganesh. To ease Parvati's grief, Shiva promised to cut off the head of the first living thing he saw and attach it to the body. That creature was an elephant. Ganesh was thus restored to life and rewarded for his courage by being made lord of new beginnings and guardian of entrances. A prayer to Ganesh is invariably accompanied by smashing a coconut, symbolic of smashing the undesirable forces inherent in one self.

    "If you take home a stone and worship it in full faith,
    over a course of time you are bound to see the image of Ganesh."


    Click here to learn more about Ganesh

  • The piece can be used both indoors and outdoors. Dust the piece regularly. If you would like the piece to shine use a cotton cloth with some coconut oil or other natural oil to wipe down the statue.