(Medium:
Acrylic on canvas. July 2015. size: 91 cm x 61 cm. Painting by Murali T, Kerala, India)
This painting is the outcome of an effort to understand the
curious construct of the image of Lord
Ganapathy (Ganesh) in its relevant social and historical background. Lord
Ganapathy, who is considered the tutelary divinity of Knowledge and the
scriptures and is the Lord of
intelligence and wisdom, has a bizarre image: a human with the head of an elephant!
This god with the elephant's head, one of the many Hindu deities, is known by several names
like Ganapathy, Ganesh, Vigneswara,
Vinayaka etc. It can be assumed that
this God was taken and fostered by the
casteist Hindu religion from the cradle of the then declining Buddhist
religion (the tantric faction of
buddhism) around the fourth century.
The God Ganapathy's image which is being
worshiped now-a-days is the body of a human who had lost his head and the head of an elephant which had lost its body, joined together . But this
artist is searching for the parts
discarded and lost while the form of
Lord Ganapathy was concieved, the head of the human, and the body of the elephant. The answer to that search may not be available
in the frivolous myths propagated by the brahmanic priesthood.
The search, for those parts discarded, are to be extended into the
domains of social history and our
logical reasoning.
The idea of the collective-strength can be seen in the
"gana" root of his names Ganapathy and Ganesha. And the 'vigna', resistance, the causing of hindrance, to the
castieist- chathurvarnya-brahmanic religion,
can be read in his decapitated
head. The 'gana' in his name point to the vigilant resistance-group supporting him. The
context, that the castiest Hindu religion referred to Buddhists, as 'Kshatriya', (Jaina
followers reffered as 'Vysya') and that Ganapathy has a tantric Buddhist heritage brings about an idea that Ganapathy
was an annoyance to the Brahmans. There
is also a myth of Parasurama, whose mission was to
annihilate the 'Kshatriyas'(Buddhist)
and the cutting off one tusk of Ganapathy can be read as an allegory to the establishing of brahmanic supremacy.
As far as Buddhists were concerned, elephant is a symbol of the Buddha. Many
animals like elephant, bull, horse etc which are described in the epic of
Buddha's life were his memorials
by the Buddhists who were not
idolaters. There is a statue, aprox.
2300 years old, of an elephant coming
out of a rock formation in Dhaulagiri near Bhuvaneshwar, sculpted as part of
the Buddhist evangelism of emperor Asoka. This statue symbolically depicts a
story related to Buddhas birth. Importing
the image of elephant, which was
a symbol of Buddha, into casteist Hindu religion was a plot to diffuse
Buddhists. The concept of
Ganapathy was a technique to
defeat and surmount, the inexorable
moral strength of the Buddhist ideology using its own images and
misleading by such symbolic representations.
The present image of the God Ganapathy was
formed during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era, in the castiest Hindu and the tantric- Buddhist religions. The concept
of Ganapathy, considered as the embodiment of alphabets and knowledge, highlights his
relevance to the Buddhist thought and religion.
The casteist- brahmanic-social
setup, whose modus operandi to retain hegemony
was to monopolize knowledge, gained
upper-hand towards the end of the Gupta
regime. During that time the adversaries of the brahmins were the
Buddhists. After the Gupta regime (AD.
320-550) the castiest-brahmin-priests lost their glory and supremacy in the society and a disgruntled
lot of these
sorcerer-wizard-scholars infiltrated the
centers of advanced learning like
'Nalanda' and 'Takshashila', and established
strong caucuses of antagonists of Buddhism. The plots for destroying
those kings who did not conform
to their policies of Yaga-yajnas, sorcery, dismembering the society into castes, establishing a status of unquestioned supremacy of brahmins in society etc.,
declaring them to be 'Asuras',
'Rakshasas' and despots, where hatched
during that period. Under these circumstances we can reasonably assume that the formulation of the Ganapathy myth was to assuage the wrath of
the general public, after such a
genocide of the Buddhists by the brahmin priests.
Ganapathy is a symbolic representation of the beheading of the Buddhists. That is why offerings
to Ganapathy is made
mandatory before the offerings to all the other divinities
that the brahmins have introduced. Thus the worship of Ganapathy became acceptable and became a solace even to those
Buddhists who were reluctant to leave
their allegiance to their former
religion. Today on all auspicious occasions, the ritual
of offerings to Ganapathy which ensures
the presence of a brahmin priest , haunts our society.
Carrier
Mouse
It is to be considered that the carrier of Lord Ganapathy is
an insignificant rodent. A harebrained, elephant-headed, gluttonous, bloated
god image riding a small mouse, reveals
the hatred, animosity , vengefulness,
mockery and the despise that the brahmin
priests nurtures in their collective racist memory towards Ganapathy. The story of Parasurama,
an incarnation of Vishnu and the destroyer of kshathriyas, confronting Ganapathy and cutting off his
tusk can also be read as a reference to the vengefulness of the priesthood. In
short, Ganapathy is a matyr. The deified victim of brahmin priesthood, in their
infamous machinations to subdue the
tantric Buddhists.
Courtesy : Thanks to Ms. Jaya M for English translation.
