Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. [53] Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. [54] One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. [55]
Ganesha is a prominent Hindu god. He is the god of beginnings, wisdom and luck and worshipped as the remover of obstacles. Ganesha is easily recognized from his elephant head. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains and Buddhists and beyond India.
It is believed that the elephant guards one of the points of compass. [5] Airavata also stands at the entrance to Svarga, Indra's palace known as Amaravati. In addition, the eight guardian deities who preside over the points of the compass each sit on an elephant (world elephant). Each of these deities has an elephant that takes part in the ...
Vinayaki (Vināyakī) is an elephant-headed Hindu goddess. [1] Her mythology and iconography are not clearly defined. Little is told about her in Hindu scriptures and very few images of this deity exist. [2] Due to her elephantine features, the goddess is generally associated with the elephant-headed god of wisdom, Ganesha.
Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. [1] He is worshipped as the lord of beginnings and as the lord of removing obstacles, [2] the patron of arts and sciences, and the god of intellect and wisdom. [3] Stories about the birth of Ganesha are found in the later Puranas, composed from about 600 CE onwards. References to Ganesha in ...
The Hindu epic Mahabharata describes two more elephants by the same name – a mythical elephant that was an incarnation of a sage, and the one that belonged to Bhagadatta, the king of Pragjyotisha. Vinayaki is an elephant-headed Hindu goddess, a Matrika. The goddess is generally associated with the elephant-headed god of wisdom, Ganesha.
Gajasura, an elephant demon from Hindu mythology; Gajendra, from the Sanskrit text Gajendra Moksha; Girimekhala, the elephant that carries Mara in Theravada Buddhism; Kasogonagá, a Toba deity described as either an elephant or an anteater. Supratika, a name for several elephants in Hindu mythology; Behemoth, a demon depicted as a round-bellied ...
Mahaganapati, folio from the Sritattvanidhi (19th century). Here he is depicted with ten arms and accompanied by a goddess. Mahaganapati (Sanskrit: महागणपति, mahā-gaṇapati), literally "Ganesha, the Great" [1]), also spelled as Maha Ganapati, and frequently called Mahaganadhipati, is an aspect of the Hindu god Ganesha.