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.