Sometimes a god needs comfort food too

This 15^th-16^th century stone sculpture of the Indian god Ganesha depicts the elephant-headed deity in typical seated pose, with his fat belly bulging over his chubby thighs. Apart from his most obvious attribute, he is also identifiable by the iconographic symbols he holds: the conch shell in his upper right hand; the noose (upper left hand - sometimes a goad or an axe), representing a weapon to catch or clear away obstacles; and his favourite ladhu sweet (lower left hand) which he is tucking into greedily. He usually holds a lotus flower as well.

Ganesha is worshipped for his ability to remove obstacles and bestow success on new initiatives, so this post should really have been the first in this blog. In case you haven’t tried them, ladhus (see below) are delicious if you have a super-sweet tooth, and Ganesha’s fondness for them is one of the things that makes him a particular favourite amongst Hindu devotees.

As if that were not endearing enough, his closest companion is a mouse, depicted on the front of the plinth in the image above. Sometimes the mouse is shown clasping his little paws in worship of Ganesha; elsewhere it has been shown bearing the god on its back (although the idea of a mouse of that size is a tad disturbing). Either way, the myth about elephants being scared of mice doesn’t apply here.

Ganesha’s story is more than a little eccentric. Unlike most gods who tend to be born from lotus flowers or cosmic seas, Ganesha was born of the goddess Parvati looking quite normal. The story goes that his father Shiva (one of the three great Hindu gods along with Vishnu and Brahma) was away for a long time. On returning, he was greeted at the door by a grown-up Ganesha whom he did not recognise. Assuming him to be an interloper, he acted as gods will often do and cut off the young man’s head. At this point, Parvati appeared. Presumably there followed what the police sometimes call “an exchange of words”.

To make up for his blunder, Shiva went out to find a new head for his son (still with us here?). Like any reluctant husband sent out to do the shopping, he settled for the first thing he saw, which was the head of a passing elephant. Parvati's response can only be imagined, but with an ample supply of ladhus all seems to have ended well. In some segments of the Hindu faith, the family may be depicted as a happy group including Ganesha's brother Skanda (or Kartikeya) and his father's bull Nandi. The particularly jolly depiction below comes from the Sri Aruloli temple on Penang Hill in Malaysia. 

Imperial survivors

This 12th century Chinese handscroll painting, commonly known as Auspicious Cranes, is attributed to Huizong, eighth emperor of the Song dynasty. It claims to depict a real-life incident when a flock of cranes (believed to bring good fortune) descended on the imperial palace in 1112.

That an emperor could paint as well as this may be surprising, but Huizong was a member of possibly the most cultured and accomplished dynasty ever to rule China. Unlike the more famous Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties, the Song were always a bit of a mystery to me, and I found their tale compelling.

The Northern Song ruled China from the 10th to the 12th centuries before being displaced, later morphing into the Southern Song (explained below). They were great patrons of art and culture, building massive libraries, becoming expert calligraphers and collecting art on a grand scale. Huizong typified these traits, even creating his own flowery calligraphic style known as “slender gold” (shoujing, below). What he lacked, though, were the leadership skills of his more illustrious ancestors.

China had long been threatened by two aggressive northern neighbours: the Khitan Liao and the Jurchen Jin. Huizong’s government tried ineptly to form an alliance with one against the other, annoying both in the process. Eventually, the Jin launched an invasion in the winter of 1125, and proceeded to pillage and destroy on a scale that I’d thought only existed in lurid historical movies.

Patricia Ebrey gives a gripping account of this in her book, Accumulating Culture. Two particular anecdotes stand out for me. First, having taken the capital Kaifeng after a brutal siege, the Jin began to hunt down and capture every member of the imperial family. They were so thorough that, among the dozens of children and grandchildren, they noticed that one baby prince was missing, hidden by his nursemaid. They were, of course, hunted down too.

The Jin toyed with the Song by making an endless series of demands. The hapless Huizong had abdicated by then, so it was his heir Qinzong who was subjected to this cat-and-mouse game. The Jin simply raised their demands each time (“Thanks for the silk. Now we’d like all your horses too.”) The amounts were staggering: millions of bars of gold and silver, and when this could not be met, women were accepted at a pre-agreed rate (1 princess = 1000 gold bars). When Qinzong tried to negotiate, the Jin general Nianhan said smoothly: “Is there anything here that is not already mine?” 

Finally, the Jin sent all their spoils back to the north, together with the imperial family and clansmen as prisoners. Of this 5000-strong prison convoy, most died en-route from hunger or exhaustion. Huizong and Qinzong survived but later died in captivity.

But this was not the end of the Song, for one of the princes managed to flee to the south where he founded what became known as the Southern Song. Like his ancestors, Emperor Gaozong (as he became) was a great patron of art but he was also a canny operator - he managed to negotiate a workable truce with the Jin, albeit on onerous terms. And he declined to ransom his older brother Qinzong, as this would have displaced him from the throne. The Southern Song lasted a further 150 years.

Studying the Song helped me to appreciate the ceramics from their period, which have a subtler beauty than the more famous Ming or Qing. One might argue that the difference between Huizong and Gaozong is reflected in two famous ceramics created under their respective reigns. On the upper left is an example of Ru ware: a dreamily beautiful blue-glazed Northern Song ceramic, said to resemble “the colour of sky after rain”. Below that is an example of the equally beautiful Guan ware, a Southern Song ceramic with a more pronounced crackle effect which suggests (to me) toughness, endurance and survival.