Hindu religion which has reached the height of spiritual and philosophical enlightenment has a tremendously impressive pantheon. This pantheon has a practical purpose to serve. It satisfies the spiritual sentiments of religious souls from all walks of life. This is one of the main reasons why Hindu pantheon has so many deities. Sometimes they simply look like a complex piece of modern arts even to the familiar eyes. The artists of the remote past who conceived this rhethod of plastic expression in symbolical forms of spiritual truths seemed wise enough to have synthesised science and religion both in their art works. As we all know religion is a dry subject and awfully abstract too. Because of its abstract nature it is quite difficult to understand it. Even if we understand it we cannot make everybody understand it like-wise unless it is in a symbolical form simply because a symbol is a concrete thing which every man can see and remember.
Symbolism has been proved to be one of the most effective means of expression in the field of arts. So far projecting the image of a subject-matter is concern it can never be worked out without the help of symbolism. A perfect image that can picturise our thoughts better than any emphatic phrase can, finally come from the carefully sected symbolism. This is very true particularly with our religious arts. Symbolism in our religious arts has a tremendous treasure of exciting stories still untold. If we only know how to sense their sweet silent language nothing can stand on our way to understanding them to our complete satisfaction. Some people say that Hinduism is a very complicated religion.Actually it is not true, because it has some simple forms too by means of which we can make it enjoyable enough for all.
Hindu religion has four main paths leading to its central core. They are as follows: Philosophy, epics, mythology and tradition. The most popular of all the four above is no doubt, mythology. Because it has a very interesting blend (of little bit of every thing) of facts and fantasy both. Hindu religion even today seems more lively with mythology than any other aspects of it. If we can only set ourselves determined to a little serious study of the mythological aspects of this religion, it will certainly switch our brain to discover a master-key to all the fascinating symbols skillfully synthesised in our religiotis arts about which we are so anxious to know.
Some thing very interesting about this religion is the highly evolved spiritual ideals and sophisticated philosophical concepts of religion are not yet for all to understand of course, for all to enjoy. A question may arise here—How is that? The immediate answer is that mythological stories will make it clear to a considerable extent. In this country alone there are innumerable volumes of mythological stories preserved in art and architecture and in shrines and sculptures.
For example, every piece of religious sculpture here is a fascinating mythological story and every symbol figured in it is a magic letter meaningful in itself even for those who are unlettered. In other words, one does not even need to be literate to understand symbolism of Nepali religious arts. Traditional beliefs and popular mythological stories help them a lot to understand their message and enjoy themselves.
In this article my main effort will be to discuss about the image of Ganeshone of the most fascinating Hindu gods fully stuffed with tremendously interesting symbols. Ganesh —as we all know—has a huge elephant head, big bulging belly and a dwarf body. It is interesting enough to notice that his body is quite gigantic yet so childlike. This is most probably the indicative of how his mother, Parwati, liked to feed her
child well so that he could grow up as fat as an elephant. Ganesh is
called a voracious eater and fond of all nice things particularly of
.sweets. He very much looks like a pampered child and yet he has a very
intelligent and expressive face. We have a very old tradition in Nepal
that small boys as Ganesh and small girls as Kumari (vestal virgin) are
worshipped with great respect and love. This can be noticed especially
on the eighth day of Dasain, the greatest Hindu festival. It is funny
that Ganesh has such a heavy body yet he has chosen a very small rat for
his vehicle. It is said that as soon as he rides on his rat's back he
suddenly grows as light as a feather. This is to let us realise that
symbolically the conception of Ganesh riding a rat illustrates nothing
than the basic Vedantic truth that what matters the most in this world
is only god and the rest, is all secondary so to say-the other external
paraphernalia is all just illusion. According to another version, this
is also to show in symbolical form that truth however small it may seem,
is capable enough to reach god any time. A religious text says that the
bulky body of Ganesh stands for the cosmos in its entiriety and his
elephantine shape is signified to embody the cosmic intelligence. Ganesh
is said to have broken his beautiful tusk to write Mahabharat for
Vyasa. The tusk even today is considered to be a sign of precious
possession and so a symbol of pride. But he did not care to break it for
the sake of intellectual progress. It is to give us a lesson that one
should not intend to be too proud to be intelligent in its true sense.
Ganesh is generally shown to have four hands which is an indicative of the super natural powers he has. He is also depicted to have many more hand': varying from four to even sixteen depending upon th icrent iconographical prescriptions prevailed in different periods of the past. There is a mention in Mygdal Puran about 32 different kinds of Ganesh. Mudgal Puran seems to have put more emphasis on the importance of Ganesh riding a lion instead of a rat. The name of this type of Ganesh is Heramba. We have quite a number of beautiful images of Heramba Ganesh in Nepal. There is one in Patan at the left corner of ancient Malta Palace which is, no doubt, a beautiful piece of work. There is another beautiful image of Ganesh with 16 hands in the south-west corner of Ranipokhari tank in Kathmandu. They are all really worth noting.
Let us now discuss only Ganesh who has four hands and also quite popular in Nepal. One of his upper hands holds a hook and another one holds a noose. The hook is meant for goading forward the unenthusiastic energy to do the good for all and the noose for pulling a man along the right path of Karma (right action). It is in this context that Ganesh is worshipped as a great remover of obstacles on the way to success and a bestower of strength and courage to his devotees. His tntnk is also considered as a fifth hand quite a unique symbol of unseen strength. . It is said that this is what has made him more powerful than other gods and distinguished and pre-eminent too. The rosary (popularly-known as prayer beads) in his third lower hand suggests that for the persuit of perfect knowledge concentration is quite compulsory. And, his fourth low* hand which is in the gesture of assuring his devote& fearlessness is to signify that one should not fear because he is always good to the one who never intends do any thing bad. In other words, this assurance that god protects all elements. Shiva, the father of Ganesh that he would be the first Hindu god to enjoy the first worship from all Hindus. He is quite famous for his intelligence.
Ganesh loves Laddu, a kind of sweet cake which is said to be the symbol of our outer layer of sordid self under which lies our most sensitive soul or Atma which is always sweet and divine. And, so one should never forget to devote himself with all his might to discover it for divine happiness. And, the third eye of Ganesh stands for his inner vision through which he can see this entire universe crystal clear. This is also 'an indicative of his most unique intuitive knowledge. The snake that runs round his big belly signifies that he is the main source of energy in all active forms. His happy fan-like ears suggest that he is full of attentions to every word we say whether it is good or bad.
Ganesh is worshipped in Nepal traditionally as a god of good luck and success. There is a popular belief that if somebody goes to the temple of Ganesh early in the morning to pray he will definitely have success for whatever business he has wished to start. What Ganesh does for us first is, he attracts our attention to his funny face. Then in no time we find ourselves laughing at him. This laughing of ours never fails to put us in a cheerful mood. It is needless to say that when one is in an enthusiastic and cheerful mood he can certainly get his works done with success. This way it seems to me that praying Ganesh for strength and success has certainly a significant purpose.
Even when looked at it from that logical point of view we can pretty well sense a very strong reason behind it.
The image of Ganesh is made to look funny not just to entertain us but also to enlighten us. The question may arise here. Why the Ganesh image should be made to look unique and unlike others at all') Because Ganesh is himself strange. He actually does not look like anything we have seen so far or we know. He is quite abstract yet full of attractions. In other words, he is a divine form of formlessness not to see but to feel. When you feel something divine seeing through his charming image you will know what Ganesh looks like.
Looking at the image of Ganesh, non-Hindus may think that in the past, the artists were probably too free to play the funny-games of imagination in the name' of religious arts and create crazy symbolical sculptures like one of Ganesh. But to think and say so will be proved merely paradoxical. So far as I feel these artists do not seem to have detrained from the track of time-honoured religious traditions under which the central core of our religious culture is existing even to-day. Though our artists seemed quite strange and non-sense but they were very disciplined and well-devoted to their respective deities. Their works quite clearly show that symbolism plays a very important role to keep religion going. If we leave religion entirely stripped off its. symbolical role and let it go naked, with nothingness, so to say, absolutely abstract, it will be awfully difficult for us to recognise its original face. I therefore, should not hesitate to say that actually nothing with the images of Ganesh is funny at all as every thing with him represents some thing fantastically true of our religious facts.
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