29 June,2011 07:22 AM IST | | Devdutt Pattanaik
Why is Ganesha visualised in red?u00a0Why doesu00a0he sit on a rodent? Why does he love modaks? Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik's answers those and other questions in his book ufffd 99 thoughts on Ganesha. Excerpts from the book
99 Thoughts on Ganesha; Jaico Books; Rs 195. Available at leading
book stores. illustration/ Devdutt Pattanaik
The idea of ganesh (balance between material and spiritual worlds)
Life can be fun. Life can also be painful. Sometimes we wish to experience all the excitement of life. But then, we experience sorrow and frustration. We wish to withdraw from life. Our ancestors experienced this too and concluded that there are two ways to live life: as a hermit who steps back and contemplates on the nature of the world and as a householder who stays in the world and experiences all it has to offer fearlessly. Our ancestors visualised the hermit as Shiva, the male form of divinity, or God, and the householder as Shakti, the female form of divinity, i.e. the Goddess. Shiva does not want to be a father and to deal with the trials and tribulations of worldly life. Shakti wants to be a mother and to engage with all things worldly, but she knows she cannot do so with Shiva's support and participation. From this tension between hermit and householder, God and Goddess, is born Ganesha, his animal head representing material joys and his human body representing spiritual bliss. In Ganesha, God and Goddess attain balance, material pleasure and spiritual wisdom in harmony.
Rat (removing the 'pest' of problems from our lives)
Early images of Ganesha, dated around 5th century AD, do not show him riding a rat. In fact, in early images, he is shown seated on a lion. This association with a rat comes from around 10th century AD. During this period, from the 5th to the 10th century AD, as the Puranas were becoming the most popular sacred document, and temple worship became more and more mainstream, Ganesha moved from being a fringe deity to a central deity. Ganesha Purana states that Rishi Parasara prayed to Ganesha as his hermitage was infested with rodents. Ganesha sat on the rats and since then Ganesha has been represented seated on a rat. In south Indian traditions it is said that the rat was once an elephant-faced demon, who was defeated and domesticated by Ganesha. Ganesha pins down and rides a rodent variously identified as mouse, rat or bandicoot. This troublesome pest has over the centuries come to represent the unmanageable problems of life. Ganesha, as the provider of solutions, removes the pest of problems from our lives. The rat is also a fertility symbol. It reproduces rapidly. Its association with Ganesha is thus natural as Ganesha is associated with many other fertility symbols such as grass and serpent.
Ravan (Divine v/s nature's call)
Shiva once allowed the demon king Ravana to carry him to the city of Lanka in the form of a linga, on condition that the sacred stone should never be placed on the ground before reaching its destination. The gods feared that no sooner did the linga reach Lanka than Ravana would become invincible. So they sought the help of Ganesha who made Ravana experience an uncontrollable urge to answer a call of nature. Desperate to relieve himself, Ravana requested a cowherd to hold the linga until he returned. The cowherd was none other than Ganesha himself. As soon as he was given the linga, he placed it on the ground where it took permanent root and became renowned as Mahabaleshwara. This story comes from the 15th century text, Gurucharitra, by Saraswati Gangadhara.
