Sadhguru | True Origins of Ganapati – Read Description to Know More @sadhguru | Uploaded 3 weeks ago | Updated 21 hours ago
Sadhguru: Shiva was considered yaksha swarupa or not of human origin. So Parvati could not bear his child. Moreover, Shiva often went off wandering by himself for long periods of many years. When he went, Parvati had no contact with him at all and she grew quite lonely.
So, out of her loneliness and her desire and maternal instinct, she decided to create and breathe life into a baby. She took something of herself, the sandal paste that was on her body, mixed it with the local soil, made it in the form of a baby and breathed life into it. This may look far-fetched, but today science is talking in these terms. If someone were to take an epithelial cell from you, some day we could make something of you out of it. Parvati breathed life into it, and a little boy was born.
A few years later, when the boy was about ten years of age, Shiva returned with his ganas. The ganas were the companions of Shiva. We do not know where they came from, but generally the lore describes them as beings who do not belong to this planet. Parvati was having a bath, and she had told the little boy, “Make sure no one comes this way.” The boy had never seen Shiva, so when he came, the boy stopped him. Shiva just took his sword out, took the boy’s head off and came to Parvati.
When Parvati saw the bloody sword in his hand, she knew what happened. She saw the boy lying there headless and flew into a rage.
To settle the issue, Shiva took the head of one of the ganas and put it on the boy. Ganesh Chaturthi is the day this happened. Because he took the head off the leader of the ganas and put it on this boy, he said, “From now, you are a Ganapati. You are the leader of the ganas.”
Somewhere down the line, calendar artists could not understand what this other creature was and drew an elephant face. You are not going to find an elephant on the banks of Manasarovar because the terrain is not right. There isn’t enough vegetation for an elephant. But the lore talks about how the ganas had limbs without bones. In this culture, a limb without bones meant an elephant trunk, so artists made it into an elephant head. So, Ganapati is many things – Ganesha, Vinayaka – but not Gajapati.
Sadhguru: Shiva was considered yaksha swarupa or not of human origin. So Parvati could not bear his child. Moreover, Shiva often went off wandering by himself for long periods of many years. When he went, Parvati had no contact with him at all and she grew quite lonely.
So, out of her loneliness and her desire and maternal instinct, she decided to create and breathe life into a baby. She took something of herself, the sandal paste that was on her body, mixed it with the local soil, made it in the form of a baby and breathed life into it. This may look far-fetched, but today science is talking in these terms. If someone were to take an epithelial cell from you, some day we could make something of you out of it. Parvati breathed life into it, and a little boy was born.
A few years later, when the boy was about ten years of age, Shiva returned with his ganas. The ganas were the companions of Shiva. We do not know where they came from, but generally the lore describes them as beings who do not belong to this planet. Parvati was having a bath, and she had told the little boy, “Make sure no one comes this way.” The boy had never seen Shiva, so when he came, the boy stopped him. Shiva just took his sword out, took the boy’s head off and came to Parvati.
When Parvati saw the bloody sword in his hand, she knew what happened. She saw the boy lying there headless and flew into a rage.
To settle the issue, Shiva took the head of one of the ganas and put it on the boy. Ganesh Chaturthi is the day this happened. Because he took the head off the leader of the ganas and put it on this boy, he said, “From now, you are a Ganapati. You are the leader of the ganas.”
Somewhere down the line, calendar artists could not understand what this other creature was and drew an elephant face. You are not going to find an elephant on the banks of Manasarovar because the terrain is not right. There isn’t enough vegetation for an elephant. But the lore talks about how the ganas had limbs without bones. In this culture, a limb without bones meant an elephant trunk, so artists made it into an elephant head. So, Ganapati is many things – Ganesha, Vinayaka – but not Gajapati.
