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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.
See All Of Lotus
Sculpture's Ganesh Statues For Sale
A
pasam or noose is a triple twine weapon. Each of the
three twines represent 1. Arrogance and conceit, 2. Maya - the
illusory nature of the real world 3. and 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 around 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.
In sculpture the
position of
Lord Ganesh's trunk has a symbolic
meaning. If the trunk turns to the
Ganesh's left, that is the
direction for success in the world. It is a position
associated with grihastas, or householders. To his
right, the trunk represents moksha, good for renouncing the
world. When one chooses a
Ganesh
sculpture that is proper for their own spiritual path the
trunk position is one thing that is good to keep in mind.
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