Reading Ganesha

Sources over the ages

- Devdutt Pattanaik

The image of Ganesha, his rituals and his stories, are a kind of mythological puzzle created by our ancestors. Through him, they are trying to communicate a profound truth that changed their understanding of the world, and enabled them to live a richer fuller life. One can argue, why not simply give the solution; why go through the trouble of creating a puzzle? Ancient Hindus believed that wisdom must never be given. It has to be taken. And so, the answers are right there in front of us, in the form of Ganesha, if we are willing to decode it. If we do not want to do decode it, it's perfectly alright. The image of Ganesha will continue to enrich us, even without being intellectually analyzed. For the intellectuals, however, there are the scriptures, the various works dedicated specifically to Ganesha, including a Purana, a Gita and an Upanishad.

Puranas are texts that chronicle the tales and the methods of worship of deities enshrined in temples. These are later Hindu texts, very different in character from early Hindu texts, the Vedas, where the cornerstone of attention was not a deity but a ritual called the Yagna.