Ganesha Painting

Ganesha Painting

Ganesha is the elephant-deity riding a mouse, he has become one of the commonest mnemonics for anything associated with Hinduism. This not only suggests the importance of Ganesha, but also shows how popular and pervasive this deity is in the minds of the masses.

The Lord of Success
The son of Shiva and Parvati, Ganesha has an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth. In fact, Ganesha is one of the five prime Hindu deities (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Durga being the other four) whose idolatry is glorified as the panchayatana puja. 

Ganesha is one of the most popular deities in the Hindu pantheon. He is closely associated with the daily lives of millions of Hindus even today. As he is reputed to be a remover of obstacles he is propitiated before the beginning of any new venture whether it is the building of a new house, the writing of a book, the beginning of a journey or the starting of a new business. His images adorn the walls of innumerable business establishments across India. It is customary for businessmen to seek his blessings each morning before they get down to business. Ganesha is also the god of wisdom and prudence. These qualities are signified through his two wives: Buddhi (wisdom) and Siddhi (prudence). Ganesha has a thorough knowledge of the scriptures and is a superb scribe. This latter quality is manifest through the fact that he is the scribe to whom Vyas Dev (the narrator of the Hindu epic Mahabharata) narrated his enormous epic. Ganesha did this work so thoroughly that the Mahabharata is one of the most harmonious works in the Hindu scriptures. Scholars, both mythical and historical, explain that this is so because, before undertaking to do the work, Ganesha stipulated that the dictation should never falter and that he should, at all times, be able to understand what was being said. Thus, it is not strange that such a conscientious god is propitiated by all and sundry.  

The painting above was taken from one of traditional artists painting in Keliki villlage namely I Wayan Gama, (Gama Painter Group - Keliki, Tegallalang, Gianyar. Phone: +6281558030516, e-mail: iwayan_gama@yahoo.com)

taken from: http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordganesha/a/ganesha.htm and http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/ganesha.html