ORIENTAL SERIES.

GANESA. 107
body. He is the god of wisdom and remover of obstacles ;
hence he is invariably propitiated at the beginning of any im-
portant undertaking, and is invoked at the commencement of
books. He is said to have written down the Maha-bhilrata from
the dictation of Vyasa. He is represented as a short fat man
of a yellow colour, with a protuberant belly, four hands, and
the head of an elephant, which has only one tusk. In one hand
he holds a shell, in another a discus, in the third a club or
goad, and in the fourth a water-lily. Sometimes he is do-
picted riding upon a rat or attended by one ; hence his appellation
Akhu ratha His temples are very numerous in the
Daklrin. There is a variety of legends accounting for his
elephant head. One is that his mother Parvati, proud of her
offspring, asked Sani (Saturn) to look at him, forgetful of the
effects of /Sam's glance. /Sani looked and the child's head was
burnt to ashes. Brahma told Parvati in her distress to replace
the head with the first she could find, and that was an elephant's.
Another story is that Parvati went to her bath and told her son
to keep the door. /Siva wished to enter and was opposed, so he
cut off Ganesa's head To pacify Parvati he replaced it with an
elephant's, the first that came to hand. Another version is that
his mother formed him so to suit her own fancy, and a further
explanation is that /Siva slew Aditya the sun, but restored
him to life again. Por this violence Kasyapa doomed /Siva's
son to lose his head ; and when he did lose it, the head of Indra's
elephant was used to replace
counted for by a legend which represents Parasu-rama as coming
to Kailasa on a visit to /Siva. The god was asleep and Ganesa
it. The loss of one tusk is ac-
opposed the entrance of the visitor to the inner apartments,
A wrangle ensued, which ended in a
"
fight. Ga^esa had at first
the advantage, seizing Parasu-rama with his trunk and giving
him a twirl that loft him sick and senseless. On recovering,
Parasu-rama threw his axe at Gawesa, who, recognising it as his
father's weapon (Siva having given it to Parasu-rama), received
it with all humility on one of his tusks, which it immediately
severed ; honce Gawesa has but one tusk, and is known by the
name of Eka-danta or Eka-danshrfra (the single-tusked). These
legends are narrated at length in the Brahma Vaivartta Purana.
Ganesa is also called Gajanana, Gaja-vadana, and Kari-mukha,
*
elephant-faced;' Heramba;' 'boastful;' Lamba-kama, *
long-