Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, also called Ganapati, elephant-headed Hindu god of

beginnings, who is traditionally worshipped before any major enterprise and is the
patron of intellectuals, bankers, scribes, and authors. His name means both “Lord
of the People” (gana means the common people) and “Lord of the Ganas” (Ganesha is
the chief of the ganas, the goblin hosts of Shiva). Ganesha is potbellied and
generally depicted as holding in his hand a few round Indian sweets, of which he is
inordinately fond. His vehicle (vahana) is the large Indian bandicoot rat, which
symbolizes Ganesha’s ability to overcome anything to get what he wants. Like a rat
and like an elephant, Ganesha is a remover of obstacles. The 10-day late-summer
(August–September) festival Ganesh Chaturthi is devoted to him.

Ganesha
Ganesha
Many different stories are told about the birth of Ganesha, including one in which
Parvati makes her son out of a piece of cloth and asks her consort, Shiva, to bring
him to life. One of the best-known myths, however, begins with Parvati taking a
bath and longing for someone to keep Shiva from barging in on her, as was his
habit. As she bathes, she kneads the dirt that she rubs off her body into the shape
of a child, who comes to life. But when Shiva sees the handsome young boy—or when
the inauspicious planet Saturn (Shani) glances at him, in some variants of the myth
that attempt to absolve Shiva of the crime—he or one of his attendants cuts off the
child’s head. When Shiva cuts off an elephant’s head to bestow it on the headless
Ganesha, one of the tusks is shattered, and Ganesha is depicted holding the broken-
off piece in his hand. According to this version of the myth, Ganesha is the child
of Parvati alone—indeed, a child born despite Shiva’s negative intervention. Yet
Ganesha is traditionally regarded as the child of both Shiva and Parvati