Mythic U
Join us to explore practices for discovering the stories that animate each of us. By understanding the meaningful stories that are your personal mythology you can choreograph your own unique way of attending to the needs of your soul. Hosted by Karen Foglesong and Erin Branham
Mythic U
Lord Ganesha
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Join us as we discuss Lord Ganesha, a popular Hindu deity known for his role in removing obstacles. We explore the history and diverse myths of Ganesha's origins, his widespread worship across Asia, and his significance in Hinduism. Ganesha's stories, including his birth, his battle with Shiva, and his broken tusk, are examined for their symbolic meanings. We also examine Ganesha's wide appeal and his association with wisdom and learning and Ganesha Chaturthi, a significant festival celebrating his birthday, as well as its historical context in India's struggle for independence.
SHOW NOTES
All About Ganesha Chaturthi on HinduAmerican.org
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Hello and welcome back to Mythic U. I'm your host, Erin Branham,
Karen Foglesong:and I'm Karen Foglesong, welcome back.
Erin Branham:Today we are going to be talking about Lord Ganesha, one of the great gods of Hinduism, and a favorite of ours, I think, certainly of mine. You too, Karen?
Karen Foglesong:yes, absolutely. I've always loved Ganesha from the moment I met him.
Erin Branham:One of the things we wanted to do here in the intro is to talk about, when we talk about Hinduism, I struggle with Hinduism. I have looked at and studied comparative mythology and religion for probably 30 years. And I struggle with Hinduism because Hinduism is so diverse and so full, and there's so much detail, and there's so much multiplicity to it. Every single God actually has avatars that are the same God, but with a different name and a different look. And there's hundreds of them, and there's 330 million gods. And India is a big country, has lots of people, and there's just, there's so much, it's so much, that it's hard to sort of figure out how to get in there and get a thread and work your way through all of it. And it has to do with one of our kind of core ideas here at Mythic U that multiplicity is is good, that the fact of there being sort of many roads to truth. And an idea that I think is very relevant in Hinduism is you get to sort of pick out of those 330 million gods. You sort of get to pick which one you really want to devote your time to, and and I love that philosophy. I think that's a great way to come at that's kind of the core idea we're getting at it, build your own mythology.
Karen Foglesong:Absolutely. And something that I've always loved is that multiplicity folds all back into one, like so any road, and that even at one point, I think Krishna explains to Arjuna that all roads, like any piece of God that you worship, leads back to the original. So it doesn't matter. And a religion that allows for that kind of acknowledgement of the multiplicity within its belief system, there's something there, there's something there.
Erin Branham:It is very nice.
Karen Foglesong:I do still hit a patriarchal wall sometimes with when I do deep dive into Hinduism, but I'm an outsider. I'm from a different culture, and I'm looking in, you know, without the benefit of being bathed in the cultural icon. So there's that too.
Erin Branham:Definitely, we're always going to come at these, and we try to really acknowledge both of us as we talk about these. These are not faiths that we were raised up in, or even near, right? We approach them very much from outside, from a great distance, and are always working to kind of better understand exactly what the wisdom is saying, the kind of spiritual truth that is that is being said in a particular religion. And as I'm saying, Hinduism is intimidating and a lot, yes, and I'm always nervous when talking about it, because I'm always afraid that, like, I don't really know enough to say things about it. And at the same time, we know enough to know that, like, if you're trying to get in there, as far as we understand with Hinduism, that's that's good, you're you're trying to find your way to the ultimate reality and the ultimate truth. And there are many, many paths in so - sure.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, yeah, and it's there's, I think most, most people that I've spoken to about this that have a perspective of belief in this tradition are open to sharing their belief system. Another part of this that is makes it sensitive is that, like when we're talking about Greek mythology, for the most part, the worship of Zeus has become eclectic. It's, but it's not a living religion. It's, you know, we're not talking about somebody's precious connection to the divine. When we're talking about Hinduism. We know even that the word Hinduism is kind of a handle that's been laid on to it from a different perspective, from a different cultural perspective, and it's a living religion, you know, like it - well, there's a multiplicity of living religions attached to that idea, right? So, in all respect, anyone who's listening, who comes, please correct us. Send us the send us the note in our many forms of media, tell us where we messed up. We'd love to have the conversation.
Erin Branham:Definitely, our whole point in doing all of this is to continue learning ourselves, right? So that's why we're going to start with Ganesha. Out of all of Hinduism, we talked a little bit about why Ganesha, and that is because Ganesha resonates with everybody. Apparently. In fact, the more I researched it, the more I found out how widespread Ganesha's worship really is.
Karen Foglesong:He's got charisma.
Erin Branham:Many, many people who see Ganesha are instantly drawn to him, as Karen said that she was, I was the same thing. I have a thing for elephants to start with, and then so the first time I ever saw Ganesha, I was like an elephant headed God- yes, I am in. I don't even know what that's all about, but look at him. He's cute. He's often he has kind of androgynous qualities, often shown as a child. He likes sweets. We all like sweets. He's relatable.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah it's true, very true.
Erin Branham:So several of the sources that we consulted as we were looking at this said that Ganesh is likely Hinduism's most popular God, meaning across Hinduism, and then also having spread outside of Hinduism. So Ganesha just has something about him that's very attractive. He's also typically known and that, like the most simple version of sort of what people know about him as the remover of obstacles, right? That's something that, again, is very attractive to about Ganesha, because who doesn't need some obstacles removed? Straightforward, right? You go to the Indian restaurant, there's a Ganesha shrine, you know, if you put a coin in there, you get some obstacles removed. It's all good.
Karen Foglesong:Definitely. We all need the obstacles removed, right? So that makes him relatable. But one of the things that I've always loved about Hinduism, like you said, the elephant headed, is that to me, if God looks like somebody on this planet or something on this planet, then that restricts the availability to other things that don't look like that image. So I've always appreciated with this type of religion that nobody looks like this person, this thing, this creature, right? It's like this androgynous, childlike, so there's an ageless, sexless, this kind of omnipotent quality. And nobody is excluded. Because nobody can be included. The image of God is singular, so the rest of us are included.
Erin Branham:Definitely. I wanted to talk a little bit about how Ganesha's popularity has grown. He appeared in this classic form, as you know, the deity that we recognize today, around the fourth and fifth centuries of the Common Era. And he appears in art a little bit in forms before that. He seems to have come out of various groups that had forms of worship for elephants and elephant gods, but his stories really originate in the Puranas, which were made between or written between the third and the 10th century of the Common Era. And the Puranas are not scripture for Hindus, but they are what are called smirti, which are Hindu texts that relate the remembered and written tradition of Hinduism. So like I said, not quite the level of Holy Scripture, although, again, Hinduism is not an Abrahamic religion. So the idea of kind of Scripture, yes, as the holy word, is quite different, yes, in Hinduism than in Christianity, Judaism or Islam. It should be noted at this point that all these dates I just gave you are because I am a person from the west. And so when I came at trying to approach Ganesha, the first thing I thought of myself was thought was like, where did he come from? When did he come into the Pantheon? What's the timeline? And that was very interesting to me. And then I learned that the authors of the Puranas and other Hindu texts are really not concerned with numbers and chronology. One scholar that I read put it this way, because of the utter lack of sequential numbering or dating on these written texts, most Hindu texts can only be said to have been written sometime between 1000 BCE and 1500 CE, somewhere in there.
Karen Foglesong:It's a large span of time!
Erin Branham:So I like that. I thought that was funny. Just meaning that like this again, this is a very Western and an Abrahamic religion thing to want to do to kind of nail God to the human timeline.
Karen Foglesong:Yes.
Erin Branham:And my understanding in the east and Hinduism particularly, they're like, No, this exists. This is outside of our kind of time. We know this. That's the way it should be. And so what exact year this was written down in our time - It just doesn't matter. Just
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:Not important.
Karen Foglesong:Well, it's another layer of releasing God from human construct, right? It is not important. Like you said, the Western tradition is trying to nail God, basically trying to bring God into a construct that humans can understand. For me, God cannot be approachable by humans, or it's not God. It's like I've. Yes, well, sorry, it's got to be beyond, you know. And this is an ad. This is like an acknowledgement of that, you know, again, another acknowledgement of this is too big. And this is the piece we have.
Erin Branham:Right. So, yeah, because, like in Hindu cosmology, the universe is billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of years old. There have been many, many ages in which the universe has collapsed back into Vishnu and then flowered back out of Vishnu and collapsed back into Vishnu and flowered back out of Vishnu. And the time scale and the framing of the cosmology is just like so enormous. It's actually longer and bigger than science says, which already, like most religions are, have a hard time with, like, hearing that the universe is 15 billion years old and the earth is 5 billion years old. Like, those numbers seem too big. They're too small for Hinduism.
Karen Foglesong:Right? Yeah.
Erin Branham:So there's very different as far as that goes. So yeah, and that's why, like you say, this idea of trying to force God into the human time frame is just silly -
Karen Foglesong:Why?!
Erin Branham:to to Hindus. It just doesn't make any sense. So I was looking a little bit more because it was very interesting to me to find out that Ganesha has actually been worshiped outside of India for a very long time. Ganesha took root early in Afghanistan because elephants had long been worshiped in the eastern part of that country, and it spread to his worship spread to Tibet and China. In Thailand, he is known as a Phra, Phra Phikanet - I'm probably saying that wrong. Ganesha sculptures appear as early as 550, to 600 CE. They're ancient shrines dedicated found throughout Thailand. Ganesha is worshiped in Japan, where he is called Kangiten, that came in around the ninth century CE. He was brought by a Buddhist monk. So 1000 years ago, Ganesha's worship spread to Southeast Asia, where he took distinctive forms in Cambodia and Vietnam. So today, Ganesha is worshiped all over Asia and venerated by Hindus, Buddhists and the Jains, so pretty much, like all of the major religions of this area, Indonesia, all these, like, just so many different places.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:That Ganesha has been worshiped for at least 1000 years. So I thought that was really fascinating. Like, this dude has always been, like, really popular-
Karen Foglesong:Yeah!
Erin Branham:and and boundary breaking, like, of sort of spilling outside of the of the origin religion. It's really interesting.
Karen Foglesong:Well, and anyone who would worship Ganesh like this is something I used to tell my students when I was teaching in college classes, is that if you walked up to a Hindu and said, most Hindus, okay, this is a generalization. And said Jesus is God, they would go, okay, cool. And then go about their business, because it's just another aspect, you know, you can have any aspect you want, right? Like the fact that there was already an elephant God in one area, and they meet Ganesha, and they're like, Okay, this is this, you know, they just Purdue. It's all just nobody has to die, no, but there's not a crusade to stop you from seeing the the elephant God in this perspective, you know, like it's Ganesha, seems to be happy to travel across borders. After all, he's a boundary breaker, right?
Erin Branham:Exactly. Remover of obstacles, get rid of all that stuff. It is. It's really great. The Hindu religion is what's called syncretic, which means that when they encounter somebody else's God, like that. So like when Alexander the Great swept across West Asia and got right up against India, got into the Indus Valley and all that stuff, and that was talking to the people there, and was like, hey, you know, here's one of our gods, Hercules. He's a demi god. He's really strong. And they were like, Oh, well, that's plainly an avatar of Krishna.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:It's, it's the way, who you call Hercules, we call Krishna. Who you call this, we call this. There just is, like, no problem with seeing that these are the same energies.
Karen Foglesong:Yep.
Erin Branham:And that is part of, like, sort of our whole philosophy, like said at Mythic U, is the idea that whatever face or story you need to put on your kind of fundamental human energies and fundamental spiritual energies, you should do that. You should absolutely do that. Yes, find these things. And that's why we're talking about Ganesha, because he's one of the ones that we really like. Like I said, instantly went, Oh, I could bring that Yes, bring that God into my personal Pantheon, and be like, Yes, I see. I wanted to mention this because this is really interesting, too. The most popular festival celebrating Ganesha in India is Ganesha Chaturthi, which takes place for 10 days in late August or September. It moves around, I think it's a lunar holiday, and is on honor of Ganesha's birthday. This festival seems to have begun as early as the 1600s but became increasingly popular after a public celebration was initiated by the prominent anti colonial freedom fighter, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who in the year 1893 so this was after the British had taken control of India and placed it under direct British rule. And they were making these different laws. And they were the Muslims were allowed to have a public religious festival, but the Hindus were not allowed. It was illegal for Hindus to have a public festival like this, and so this anti colonial freedom fighter started this public celebration of or really pushed the public celebration, and the British were not able to stop the Hindus from celebrating Ganesha Chaturthi every year, and so now it's really a big symbol of like, Hindu pride and the demand for equal rights ever since. Now, since then, the political situation has become much more complicated, and there's like, fundamentalist Hindus, and it's become this very religious back and forth between the Muslims and the Hindus. And this guy who I just mentioned, who's a freedom fighter. He has his own set of issues. He's not saying he's not problematic. He definitely was. I read through some of his stuff, didn't like women.
Karen Foglesong:Right?
Erin Branham:That always, like you said, there's still a very patriarchal aspect to a lot of traditional Hinduism. But anyway, I thought that was really interesting, though, that the history of that, how this festival of Ganesha is a sign of sort of throwing off colonial rule, and is still celebrated with that in mind.
Karen Foglesong:Well, that was a brilliant move on his part. I mean, already we've talked about how Ganesha has this popularity with with people in general as they come across him. So what a way to defy being controlled to have a party. Like, how do you like to have a party that everybody just can't stand to not be a part of?
Erin Branham:So it was a little bit like that, it sounds like. So I thought that was a really cool little extra thing about Ganesha that I didn't know before.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, no, I didn't know before this either. Yeah, I thought it was very interesting. Too. Fantastic then. So how do we get Ganesha? How many stories did we find about the birth of Ganesha?
Erin Branham:So we had started the idea that we were just going to do a single myth. Yeah, we would do the birth of Ganesha. But as we got into it, as always with Hinduism, there are a lot of stories of the birth of Ganesha. Ganesha himself actually has many, many different names. He's also known as Ganapati. The name actually means Lord of hosts or Lord of the group, or Lord of the people. And there's many different kinds of things about that. But then Ganesha has, like, what was it? 108 other names.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah, and some of the prayers say the Lord with 108 names, literally, you know, like, so there's an acknowledgement of that.
Erin Branham:So back to the multiplicity of Hinduism, in which there's not sort of a singular set of stories. So the birth of Ganesha, which is where we're going to start. We actually got so into Ganesha. We like some of the other stories. We're going to talk about that too. So birth of Ganesha, you want to start with at least one of the versions.
Karen Foglesong:Well, the one I know the best is where Parvati is wanting to bathe and has been flustered for some time because she hasn't been able to have a quiet moment. And so she takes the oil and skin from her body and shapes it and breathes life into it, and has a son, basically, and says, guard the door of the bath house and don't let anybody in. And he's a faithful son, and so he doesn't. And then, for whatever reason, this is the moment that Shiva decides, her husband decides to come home, and he tries to get by. And Ganesha as a boy. He's a normal looking boy, of course, a beautiful looking boy, right? It's beautiful. Says, No, you can't pass. And they have a scuffle, of course. And Shiva is Lord God, and so he cuts off his head. And once Parvati finds out he's very she's very distraught, and Shiva goes to find a head for and there's, see, there's variations within variations too, like there's some where he says, go out to my faithful servants and find the first animal you see, right? And the first animal they see is an elephant, right? And that's how he gets his elephant head, because I guess the the human head has been eviscerated, maybe, like there's no -
Erin Branham:Shiva decapitated him.
Karen Foglesong:Right - but where does that go? Why don't they just put his head back? Yeah? Like, so bizarre. All this, all of the stories, the head disappears, even if the baby, like, there's one version I know, where Parvati wants everybody to come to a party, and she invites her brother, who has been cursed by his wife that anything he looks at will implode, like you can tell he's been having a roaming eye, right? So he kind of keeps himself contained. But she insists. And he comes to the party, and she's like, my baby is so beautiful, you have to look at him. And he's like, no, no, I don't want to kill your baby. And she's like, No, his beauty will protect him. And he looks at the baby, and his head flies off. And then, then the decree is given. Brahma says, Whatever head you find we'll put on the baby and he'll live. But again, the baby's head is never brought back like that's never So what you've got to have a couple too. I hope I didn't steal yours.
Erin Branham:Oh no, not at all. I think that's there's the from the way that I've read about it. There's different versions, where sometimes Ganesha is Shiva's son by himself, sometimes Ganesha is the son of Shiva and Parvati. Sometimes Ganesha is the son of Parvati herself, just by herself. And so there's all these different like Who exactly the parents are, or how exactly it came to be. There's many different versions of that. Yeah, there were different versions of sort of the battle between Ganesha and Shiva, when he's outside guarding Parvati's bathhouse, bath house, like one of the versions that I read about it was that, you know, Shiva, who's the destroyer God, would have these kind of intense periods of destroying things, apparently, which took a lot out of him. And so he would have to go off from time to time, and sort of re reintegrate himself and sort of get - and invented yoga in order to do this, you would have to go off and have these meditative periods that were quite long. They lasted. He was either 12 or 20 years. I can't remember.
Karen Foglesong:Hey, you guys, this is a good place to take a pause and remind you that, if you like what you're hearing,
Erin Branham:we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at your mythic, u@gmail.com
Karen Foglesong:so y, o, u, r, m, y, t, h, i, c, u@gmail.com
Erin Branham:rate and review us on Apple podcasts or whatever your podcatcher of choice is, we'd love to hear from you your mythic, you@gmail.com so that's why this particular thing, when he comes home finally, it's been 12 or 20 years, and he wants to see his wife, because he's been gone for a very, very long time, right? And so when this kid standing outside of his wife's bath house is like, Nope, you can't go in, and he's like, What are you talking about? I have seen my wife in 12 years. I need to see her. I need to see her right now. I'm a god. And then Shiva goes everywhere with this large host of demons who are part of his destructive power. And they are called the Ganas, as in Ganesha. And so that's the host. Gana means host or group or people or the Ganas, are these demons. And so they're like, when he Shiva comes up to Ganesha, he has this host of demons, like, all around him, right? And they're demons are not. They don't look like humans. They all have one, limbless, what is it? Boneless arm that like is so that you have to think of them as not looking like they don't look like humans. They're like, you know, destructive energy sort of thing.
Karen Foglesong:No, they're blobby,
Erin Branham:Yeah, blobby sort of things, yeah. So they're freaking out all that. At least one of the versions I read Shiva sends all the Ganas at Ganesha, at the young boy who's guarding his mother's bath. But because Ganesha is made of the energy of Parvati, he could take them all right? Basically, yeah. So it's like, this really grand battle is described, yeah. And it's only, I think, when Shiva steps up that then Ganesha is overcome. And you would think at this point Shiva would be keen to the fact that something's up here. It's not just right, some regular kid, but anyway, he doesn't, so he chops off the kid's head, and as you said, somehow or another, the kid's head rolls away. And this one version of it that I heard was actually that Shiva then turned around and took one of the Ganas, or took the head off of one of the Ganas, and placed it on the boy's body. And the reason that it is rendered as an elephant head is because of the one boneless arm that the Gana has. And so in the descriptions, the written descriptions of it, it described this, this floppy arm, which the artists who then made images of it interpreted as the trunk of an elephant, right? So that was interesting. And then, as you say, may have kind of merged with elephant worshiping cults or things like that. Potentially, that's like, what's interesting. Can't even unravel the history. It's so complex. It's over such a long period of time, over such a big area, and there's so many different stories, right? How that got there?
Karen Foglesong:One thing I read said that the different versions of Ganesha's birth, if you're studying them, there are lessons in which version is chosen to be told. Does that make a kind of sense? Like, if you've been studying Ganesha, then you know, there are multiple stories, so the one that is being applied and then a particular situation means something.
Erin Branham:Right. Because they all have, all of them have lots of symbology, like, there's a lot of interpretations of all of these things. Even images of Ganesha that will that will say things such as this. The large ears of the elephant represent the fact that Ganesha is wise and listens.
Karen Foglesong:Right.
Erin Branham:The different things that he's holding in his hands. He has, you know, a goad in one hand or a whip in one hand, which has to do with having discipline over your, you know, baser passions. And in this other hand, it has the treat, which is, if you follow your dharma correctly, you will get little, sweet, beautiful things in this life, as well as- The largeness of his head represents - because Ganesha is also the God of the intellect and of learning. That means that the, you know, big brain, big like that. That's the emphasis on that. So every single piece of an image of Ganesha has all of these symbology and and spiritual wisdom embedded within the image.
Karen Foglesong:I like that he has a smaller mouth than his ears, and that means you should talk less and listen more. Or I also like the fact that he rides on a mouse or a rat. Some people interpret it as a rat or mouse, but I've always thought it was interesting, because in the West, we talk about the only thing elephants are afraid of are the mouse, like in the Dumbo movie, where you have the mouse come and be the friend of the elephant, because that's like the dichotomy in our culture. So I thought that was interesting when I first came across the fact that he rode a mouse. But then in researching for this episode, we're talking about how he rides on a mouse, because the mouse represents desire, and you ride your desire, you are in control of your desire, which I found that, I mean, that's interesting too.
Erin Branham:Definitely. I love that one. Do you want to move on to Ganesha's tusk?
Karen Foglesong:Ganesha's tusk? Okay, yes. So Ganesha only has one full size tusk, the other one is broken. And again, there's a multiplicity of stories about how his tusk is broken.
Erin Branham:And what it means that his tusk is broken.
Karen Foglesong:Right? One tusk, retain the good and throw away the bad. And many believe that if the broken tusk means that you keep that one good tusk and you throw away like maybe the tip of that bad one was or that broken one was bad, so you toss it. And having the broken one and the full one is a constant reminder that that's what you should do in your life, is to get rid of the bad and save the good and be able to recognize the difference between the two, right? Yeah, definitely, you might have something different.
Erin Branham:Well, I liked the story that the broken tusk came that Ganesha had been tasked with copying down the verses of the Mahabharata and his you know, his father, Shiva, had said, I need you to write all of this down. And you, here's the storyteller. He knows the whole thing. He has agreed to have all of this written down on one condition that he does not want to have to stop talking. He's going to tell it all in one go, and you have to capture it all in one go. And Ganesha was like, You got it, Dad, and took his quill and was writing and writing and writing and writing and writing. And the guy keeps talking this very long story, and it goes on and goes on and goes on. And eventually the quill got worn down and wasn't writing anymore. And so in order not to stop, Ganesha broke off his own tusk and used it as the writing instrument to write down the whole thing. So there's a variety you know symbolically about that, making sacrifice for learning, making the sacrifice to capture the learning as part of his kind of story of being the God of the intellect and of learning as well. So I like it because it symbolizes that, and I'm an educator. So that one works for me.
Karen Foglesong:Yeah. It also places a hierarchy learning over the physical form. Yeah, absolutely, definitely, yeah. And one version of that story I read said that he'd never used a quill, though, that he couldn't find an instrument that was worthy of the wisdom, so thus broke off his own horn, you know. And you can there. You can see, if I'm trying to talk about a sacrifice for the work, I might use one story or the other to iterate that. Or if I'm trying to talk about the magic or the respect in an item, then I might talk about use one version, trying to pull out again, why we would have so many different versions of the same story. And you guys, people might fight over these in India over cocktails or something, but they're not. They often do not create like the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, like that version is not there.
Erin Branham:No it had to think, not in between. It within the diversity of Hinduism itself. And I think, you know, it seems Hinduism and the Hindus, that was, those were words and labels that were put on the people who lived in the Indian subcontinent by the British colonizers.
Karen Foglesong:Outsiders.
Erin Branham:Yeah, and that the truth was, is that it was the whole area which had been consolidated under various kings and rulers at various points, but largely it consisted of extremely diverse sets of tribes, you know, small groups of people who had been related to each other for a very long time and lived in these various areas. And so they all had related, but not exactly the same religion, right? It had a lot. They all talked to each other and traded with each other, and they knew each other, and they all this stuff. So they had all this, but there was so much great diversity upon it. And calling it Hinduism even is a little bit it's like catching up all of this into a net and saying, we're going to call this all one thing, when in reality, it's like a bazillion different things that are similar but not exactly the same.
Karen Foglesong:Right? But Western study likes handles. Western study likes handles.
Erin Branham:We're into categorization, for sure. We like simplifying things. I mean, that is the Western you know, way of ordering the universe has to do with rationality and logic. And what logic always wants to do is simplify, right, to put things in the kind of simplest form. And in that way, you often miss, miss some of the richness and diversity of things, because you just, like, want to put it all in one category, when really there's like, a bazillion categories. But you're like, that's too that's how my why my Western mind rebels every time I try to get into Hinduism, it's like, it's too much. I can't put it in order. I can't, ah, just so sad. Because I really I continue to try, because I want to understand it.
Karen Foglesong:That's the point.
Erin Branham:I found one other story about the tusk that I thought was interesting, that was about Ganesha and the moon. Here's the tale. It says, really good. Okay, after coming back from a feast at kuberis Palace, Ganapati, which is another name for Ganesha, was riding on his mouse on the way home. It was a full moon that night, as he was riding his mouse, he saw a snake and ran behind the bush. Ganapati fell to the ground and his stomach broke open. Ganapati started to put the food back in his stomach. The Moon God saw him and started laughing loudly. Angered by this, Ganapati broke pronounced a curse on the moon god, and before cursing, the moon threw his one tusk on him and broke him in two pieces. You shall be always black and never seen by anyone. Ganapati said, frightened by the curse the moon God started pleading for mercy. Ganapati said, okay, but you shall be changing from New Moon to full moon. Also. If anyone sees the moon on my birthday, he or she shall not attain Moksha, or liberation, which is liberation from the cycle of life and death, which is what Hindus Hinduism is sort of trying to get you through all that. So this is the story of why viewing the moon on Ganesha Chaturthi, remember, which is a celebration of Ganesha's birthday, is considered inauspicious and is believed to create real problems. The Moon God kept quiet. After Ganapati had finished putting the food in his stomach, he took the snake and tied it around his belly. If you see an image of Ganesha, you often see him with the snake tied around his belly. So this story kind of tells you where that came from. Anyway. I like that one. I hadn't heard that story about Ganesha and the moon and the tusk, and I like that.
Karen Foglesong:That's an awesome story. Yeah.
Erin Branham:Yeah, exactly. It's an etiological myth which tells like why things are the way they are.
Karen Foglesong:And it gives you the reason why we see, see the moon change too. So one of my favorite Ganesha stories is he magically has a brother named Kartikaya. Or Kartikeya, you can look him up and find out what his origin is, because that's a whole nother rabbit hole that you have to go down. But at any rate, Kartikeya often represents physicality in the world, where Ganesha represents intellectual pursuits or creative pursuits, like we've talked about. So one story that I found is that there's a set of twins, wisdom and prudence, and both Karthikeya and Ganesha want to marry them. And so they're given a task that whoever circumnavigates the globe the fastest gets both of their hands in marriage. Kartikeya takes off at once. Ganesha sets down and begins to study the Scripture. And by the time Kartikeya returns from walking around the globe, Ganesha is already married to prudence and wisdom. And I've always loved that story. And while we were researching that for this, I found another one that Lord Shiva was given a special fruit, and both sons, Kartikeya and Ganesha, wanted it, and he didn't want to choose between them. And so he says, Whoever circumnavigates the globe or finds the wisdom of the universe, then will get the fruit. And Kartikeya takes off around the globe physically. And Ganesha circles around Shiva and Parvati one time. And they say, what is up with this, Ganesha? And he says, Ah You are the center of the universe, my father and mother. So now I have learned all there is to know. And there's a little flattery there, you know. But there's also this idea that the that the omnipotent being which Shiva represents, and Ganesha represents and Parvati represents have been circumnavigated, and so you get the prize, you know, the fruit being the gift from the gods, the boon of knowledge or wisdom and prudence, either one. You see kind of a in both of these stories, you can see kind of this idea that Kartikeya is completely enamored or contained within the physical world, and that's the only way that he perceives the answer. And Ganesha has another way, always, another way, another way around and it and he can make it make sense logically.
Erin Branham:Definitely.
Karen Foglesong:It's not. It's not the go to answer, right? So that's one of my favorite things about Ganesha, is that idea.
Erin Branham:Definitely he's very creative and funny, and that's what I get from the story of circumnavigating his parents and saying, You are the center of my world, parents. I just love that. So hilarious. And I read several things that said Ganesha also has this mischievous quality that that story demonstrates, and that is another part of his appeal, right? Like he's just, it's, he's sort of cheeky. And I there was one story that I ran across that I hadn't heard that says Lord Vishnu. And I remember, Vishnu is like the source of all is like the ultimate source of all the gods sort of proceed out of them. Lord Vishnu got annoyed very badly when his conch was missing. So like a conch shell, right? Yeah. After some time, he heard the sound of his conch from the side of Mount Kailash, which was Lord Shiva's home. So he goes over there to find out what that and he finds his conch with Lord Ganesha. So and Vishnu is like, uhhh, give it back. And Ganesha just basically ignores, ignores him, and keeps playing the conch. So Vishnu goes to Shiva and says, Would you please get your conch back from your son? I need my conch. And Lord Shiva goes to Ganesh is like, Hey, you took the Vishnu's conch. Give it back. And as the mischievous little boy, right? Ganesha is like, no. No, really, you need to give it back! And he says, No, not gonna do it. And like, so you can kind of get this sense that, because Ganesha is cute and he can, he can get away with it, right?
Karen Foglesong:Yeah.
Erin Branham:So finally, Shiva is like, thrown by this whole situation. So Shiva finally goes, Okay, I like, I gotta do something. So he goes to Vishnu, and he says, You know what, if you would perform a puja, if you would basically pray to Ganesha, flatter him, I think he would give you your conch back, which is absurd for this, like young god, to be demanding that the source of all existence, Vishnu, do this. But Vishnu goes, it does like he goes, and he gets down on his knees, and he performs the ceremony. And Ganesha giggles and thinks that's funny, and hands him his conch back.
Karen Foglesong:That's that is a great story.
Erin Branham:I really like it. It's very, very funny.
Karen Foglesong:And it points to,
Erin Branham:just to think of the like said, just the cheekiness.
Karen Foglesong:Yes, the cheekiness, yes. And I like that it points again to that multiplicity. So basically, you're having one version of a God, like be cheeky to himself, you know, to a reflection of himself, and then the other version of the god bowing down to the younger version of himself, you know. So there's, like, this interplay of time and dimensionality. And, I mean, it's a you could chew on that. I love these stories because you can chew on them so many directions. It could mean this. It could mean that. It could mean Ah, yes, ah, these, you know, they're great.
Erin Branham:Definitely.
Karen Foglesong:I love this way of nesting God within itself, and not allowing God this kind of story that you just told, is the gesture to the king energy. It is not allowing God to be so full of himself or herself or itself, that it can't bow down to the younger version of itself. You know that's important. It is important not to get righteous because, because righteous causes you to be unbendable. Righteous causes you to kill. Righteous causes you to stop studying.
Erin Branham:Definitely. So to this very day, Hindus and various other Buddhists and Jains and people from all around the world worship Ganesha. Traditionally, for Hindus, you keep, you might have a Ganesha statue inside your home, part of your shrine that you keep with that. You - my understanding is you worship Ganesha or offer prayer to Ganesha, whenever you are starting something to say, Please remove the obstacles from from my way to do this, you're supposed to do this with devotion, with real love in your heart, as opposed to just sort of outwardly performing the thing it says. You know, even simple gestures are sacred when you are have the the true devotion in your heart? Yeah, my understanding is you typically start any kind of worship with a with a prayer to Ganesha before you get on to the other ones. Again, this kind of idea of opening, he's the barrier remover, right? The obstacle, remover, so he opens the door to all of that.
Karen Foglesong:Another piece of this story that I always like is that in Abrahamic religions, there's this idea of not having an idol, which is very different in what we're calling Hindu religion right now, because there are many idols. And one of the things that I really love about it is that I can take my little image of Ganesha, and if I am going to actually do a like it's it's a statue. That's all it is. It's my little statue, and I can wear it, keep it with me. But if I'm going to worship Ganesha or pray to Ganesha, the first thing I'm going to do is ask the spirit of the god to embody my idol, which I think is such a beautiful idea, it changes the mundane object into a spiritual object now, and so once it's a spiritual object, then I can interact with it in a very different way. And the puja, or the system of giving grace or thanks to Ganesha, there are many different ways of doing that, but all of them are about giving the energy of that deity or that thought form, perspective, due respect. And while giving due respect to an idol, you are also concentrating or meditating on those energies yourself. So it is this constant idea of reflection of God and reflection of self, and how those systems are integrated with the world and with each other. And I mean that like you can sit and meditate on that for the rest of your life and never unravel it.
Erin Branham:Definitely, yeah, that's exactly what you do. You have an idol you do that. You offer, you know, you light a lamp, you burn incense sticks, you offer flowers to Ganesha. These are all ways to do that. Hindus would chant mantras or other kinds of prayers in front of the image, which can be a sculpture or can be a painting. You can offer Modak, which is a sweet treat. This is, again, I think, one of the reasons people love Ganesha, Ganesha loves sweets. You love sweets. You know exactly where that guy is coming from, yep. So you can offer little sweet, sweet treats to to Ganesha. And I think that's just really, it's a beautiful thing and and he's believed to bring you prosperity, remove removing difficulties, protection, wisdom and intelligence, all the things that he symbolizes can come into your life if you do a little worship of Ganesha. And just in case, anybody's intra interested Ganesha Chaturthi, the celebration of Ganesha's birthday this year will be August 26 through an August 27 I think, is where it starts, and it's a 10 day celebration.
Karen Foglesong:Wow, that sounds like fun. I've always said, like, if you miss for some reason, if you miss our New Year's, you could pick one out of any. You could just pick a different one from around the world. There's a new year every few months. So it feels like Ganesha's birthday might be another one that I should add to my list. So add it to your calendars. You guys, there's always a reason to celebrate, right?
Erin Branham:It's just it's very much a an active faith today. And if Ganesha sounds interesting to you, we invite you to actually check it out and see if there's something there that resonates for you.
Karen Foglesong:Yep, go out there and find your face of God.
Erin Branham:Absolutely. All right. Well, thank you all for joining us here at Mythic U. We hope to see you again soon. Thank
Karen Foglesong:you for joining for joining us at mythic u we want to hear from you. Please visit our website at mythic u.buzzsprout.com that's m, y, t, h, i, c, U, dot, Buzz sprout.com for more great information on choreographing your own spirituality, leave us a comment and donate if you have the means and the interest. If you'd like to support our work more regularly, visit our Patreon and become a member of mythic you, depending on the level at which you join, members receive early access to new episodes, bonus episodes and free mythic you gifts you.
