In our downstairs hall, we have a brass wall hanging that at first looks like an elephant head. But on closer examination, it’s apparent that it’s not a real elephant head — it’s a brass “carving” of Ganesha, one of the most important gods in Hinduism. Ganesha is also worshipped as a principal deity in both Jainism and Buddhism.
Ganesha is the son of Shiva and Parvati and he is the brother of Karthikeya, the god of war.
There are a lot of different stories about the birth of Ganesha, including one in which Parvati makes her son out of a piece of cloth and asks her consort, Shiva, to bring him to life.
But one of the best known myths begins with Parvati taking a bath and longing for someone to keep Shiva from barging in on her, as was his habit. As she bathes, she kneads the dirt that she rubs off her body into the shape of a child, who comes to life. But when Shiva sees the handsome young boy he, or one of his attendants, cuts off the child’s head. Then Shiva cuts off an elephant’s head to bestow it on the headless Ganesha, but during the process one of the tusks is shattered. (People often notice the missing tusk on the head hanging in our hall.) According to this version of the myth, Ganesha is the child of Parvati alone — a child born despite Shiva’s interference. However — Ganesha is traditionally regarded as the child of both Shiva and Parvati.
In Hindu art, Ganesha is portrayed in various ways depending on specific cultures, like Indian, Cambodian, Javanese, etc., but he is most often depicted with the head of an elephant and a rather portly human body. It is believed that Ganesha clears the obstacles and paves the way for us to move forward in life. The large elephant head of Lord Ganesha symbolizes wisdom, understanding, and a discriminating intellect that one must possess to attain perfection in life.
So when someone asks about our wall hanging, we just tell them that’s it’s from India — and it’s an elephant head….
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