Ganesha is, in all likelihood, India’s single most popular god. He might not command the vast pilgrimage centres of Shiva and Vishnu, but his annual festivities still mobilise tens of millions of people across the subcontinent. But Ganesha’s popularity is new in scale, not in concept. As a remover of obstacles, his history extends for nearly 2,000 years—and encapsulates surprising historical and religious developments across Asia.
The long history of the ‘Sacred Elephant’
Despite his popularity, it is unclear what exactly Ganesha’s origins are. He seems to appear out of the blue in Puranic Hinduism from around the 3rd–4th century CE, with a recognisable iconography of an elephant head and a bowl containing sweets. He also appears, in myths very familiar to Indians, as the son of Shiva and Parvati, with colourful explanations for his elephant head. This has led to much debate: why was this particular elephant-headed form chosen for Ganesha? Why was he believed to be a remover of obstacles? Why do legends refer to him as the son of Shiva? What were the origins of India’s most popular god?
Some hints can be derived from texts, and others from art and numismatics. Archaeologist AK Narain of Banaras Hindu University conducted an extensive review of the evidence, published in the volume Ganesh: Studies of an Asian God. If Harappan seals are any indication, in the northwest of the subcontinent, elephants had been considered important, if not sacred, from as early as 2000 BCE. But Narain notes that Ganesha is absent from the Ramayana, and his appearance in the Mahabharata, as the text’s scribe, dates to a later recension. The title ‘Ganapati’, Lord of Ganas, appears in early Vedic literature, but is applied to other gods. The earliest mention of ‘Vinayaka’ or Lord of Obstacles, another of Ganesha’s names, is from late Vedic texts dating to around 500–600 BCE. But there, it is used for a group of four fearsome spirits who would create obstacles unless propitiated. Deities linked to elephants also find mention in Vedic literature: Hastimukha, the elephant-faced; Vakratunda of the curved trunk; and Ekadanta of the single (or unique) tusk. But they do not seem to have been assimilated into a single god, and were not a major part of Brahmanical religion.
There was, however, more happening in the background, which is not visible to us through Vedic texts. There was a thriving worship of elephant-shaped deities in Northern India for centuries before the proper emergence of Ganesha. And other powers were more than willing to acknowledge popular gods, even if the Vedic schools were not. Buddhists, for example, claimed that a white elephant had pierced the womb of the mother of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. In their Jataka legends, the Buddha is an elephant in multiple earlier births. In Pali texts, devotees of a ‘Sacred Elephant’ are mentioned alongside the worshippers of Vasudeva (the future Krishna), Indra, Surya, and various other nature deities. And around 250 BCE, when the Mauryan emperor Ashoka was raising edicts throughout the Gangetic Plains, he mentioned festivals to a certain Gajatame, or ‘Supreme Elephant’.
Meanwhile, in the northwest, an elephant-headed god was beginning to take iconic form. Near present-day Kabul, a mountain deity was worshipped with the name of Pilushara, or Elephant-Essence. As the Indo-Greeks consolidated power there in subsequent centuries, they began to think of elephants as a symbol of success, depicting themselves wearing elephant helmets. And when they came under assault from the Yuezhi—the future Kushan Empire—around 50 CE, they tried to appeal to the Sacred Elephant’s popularity. The last Indo-Greek king, Hermaeus, issued multiple coins with himself on the obverse and an enthroned Zeus—king of the Hellenic gods—on the reverse. In one very significant coin, Zeus is replaced instead with an enthroned elephant-headed god: possibly the oldest-ever depiction of the future Ganesha.
The icon of Ganesha on the coin of King Hermaeus, who was the last Indo-Greek king, and who ruled circa B50 CE, and from the region near present day Kabul. pic.twitter.com/VO2KoNLVj7
— Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (@BhandarkarI) January 27, 2021
By around 200–250 CE, in Mathura, sculptures of a god with an elephant head and pot belly were being produced. Within another century, an elephant-headed god called both Lord of Obstacles and Lord of Ganas is described as Shiva’s son in the Puranas, and makes an appearance in temples. This new Ganesha was one of many newly-benevolent composite gods that appeared in this time of political and religious creativity, as the Kushan Empire gave way to the Gupta Empire. He embodied the power over obstacles that the earlier Vinayakas had; helped in the reinvention of the ascetic Shiva as a royal, familial god, and absorbed the benevolence and popularity of the worship of the ancient Sacred Elephant, bringing all these elements to the flourishing, temple-based Puranic Hinduism. Similar ‘divine gentrification’ also took place with Skanda, and with fierce goddesses called the Saptamatrikas. The Ganesha we can recognise today had crystallised, but his story had just begun.
Also read: Mahabharata war to Dasaratha sacrifices—Tripura’s Manikya dynasty used religion as a force
Ganesha in Southeast Asia
As with Ganesha’s origins in India, it is not clear how exactly he arrived in Southeast Asia. Quite abruptly, from 550–600 CE, Ganesha sculptures appeared in Cambodia and Thailand. Around this time, Ganesha spread throughout South Asia, laying the foundations for his present-day popularity. It appears that there was an exchange of Puranic Ganesha-related ideas between South and Southeast Asia at an early stage. But thereafter, the evolution of the god followed very different trajectories in these regions, questioning the notion of Southeast Asia simply following ‘Indian’ innovations.
As various forms of Hinduism developed in mainland Southeast Asia, Ganesha was propitiated at the start of all rituals. So his role as the Lord of Obstacles took firm root. In Cambodia, especially, Ganesha was treated as a major god capable of granting moksha, ultimate liberation, to his devotees—something that, in the Indian subcontinent, was mostly associated with Shiva and Vishnu. In Cambodia, temples were also erected exclusively for Ganesha, whereas in medieval India, he was generally depicted in sculptural niches as a minor god. Mainland Southeast Asians also did not take to Ganesha’s rat vehicle, which he gained in India. He is never shown dancing, or in familial scenes with Shiva and Parvati—though both of these forms grew popular in India through the medieval period.
In island Southeast Asia, the dancing Ganesha was known—though not in a form we might expect. By the 14th–15th centuries CE, Java saw the development of a truly unique religion: a melding of tantric Buddhism and Shaivism. The king Kritanagara, an avid tantric practitioner, mentions in his inscriptions that he performed an esoteric rite called the Ganachakra, a nocturnal ritual in a burial ground. In this context, as a tantric deity who removes obstacles in magical rituals, Ganesha dances in Javanese reliefs. He is also depicted crowned with skulls and sitting upon thrones of skulls—both symbolic of his appropriation into tantric religion.
Premodern deities were not static and continually evolved in response to the societies they belonged to. The story of Ganesha, in particular, is tied to many regions, many innovations, and many ways of seeing the world. What we’ve seen so far was just one strand of Ganesha’s evolution, the southern trajectory of this ever-creative god. In Tibet and China, he would take on altogether darker tantric forms, whereas in Japan, he evolved into a unique ‘twin’ form with a male and female aspect. We’ll see more of these in future editions of Thinking Medieval.
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of Lords of the Deccan, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.
This article is a part of the ‘Thinking Medieval‘ series that takes a deep dive into India’s medieval culture, politics, and history.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)