The Development of Hindu Iconography c16.38

c16.38

Before an account of the ‘Devatās’, the Yakṣiṇīs and the iconographic types based on them are given, it is necessary to study an iconic type and its variants which appear to have been derived from the Yakṣa and Nāga types discussed above. Images of Gaṇapati, the god who became the principal object of worship of the Gāṇapatyas, one of the five recognised Brahmanical sects, appear to be basically connected with these two groups of folk divinities. A brief notice of the origin of the cult itself will be necessary before the iconic forms of the god and a few of the corresponding iconographic texts are considered at some length. It has been the opinion of many scholars that the cult of Gaṇapati was a comparatively late development. R. G. Bhandarkar is of opinion that as there is no mention of Gaṇapati and his worshippers in any of the Gupta inscriptions and as the description of the image of Gaṇapati in the chapter on Pratimālaḳṣaṇam of the Bṛhatsaṃhitā seems to be an interpolation, this elephant-headed and pot-bellied god came to be regularly worshipped after the late Gupta age. He, however, traces the beginnings of this worship to the veneration paid by many Indians to such ‘imps and evil spirits’ as Śāla, Kaṭamkaṭa, Uṣmita, Kuṣmāṇḍarājaputra, Devayajana and others mentioned in the Mānava Gṛhyasūtra and the Yājñavalkya Smṛti.¹ They are collectively described in these texts as well as in the Mahābhārata as Vināyakas who were prone to possess men and women, make them failures in life and put obstacles in their performance of good deeds; the texts also lay down various ways of propitiating these spirits and thus freeing oneself from their possession. It may be mentioned incidentally that the main characteristics of Gaṇapati-Vināyaka as the ‘King of obstacles’ (Vighnarāja), the ‘destroyer of obstacles’ (Vighna-vināśana) and the ‘bestower of success’ (Siddhidātā) after proper propitiation can be traced to the traits of the ‘imps and evil spirits’, the like of whom can even be found in the earlier Gṛhyasūtras (cf. supra, p. 73, f. n.),. In the Yājñavalkya smṛti (I. 271 ff.) one Vināyaka came to be described for the first time as the son of Ambikā, and this was the beginning of the very confused mythology about the origin of Gaṇapati to be found in later literature. T. A. G. Rao has collected a good many stories about this topic from several Purāṇas and Āgamas, in which the god is variously described as the son of Pārvatī alone, as the son of Śiva and Pārvatī, and even having an independent origin.¹ This shows the attempts of the later mythologists to bring this cult-god in line with the more important cult deities, Śiva and Śakti, of much earlier origin. It should be noted, however, that Gaṇapati’s affiliation was at first sought mainly with those of the cult deities who had many primitive and un-Aryan traits in their composition; but in much later Purāṇas like the Brahmavaivartta Gaṇeśa is sometimes described as one of the aspects of Kṛṣṇa. The literal meaning of Gaṇapati is ‘the leader of the Gaṇas’ who have almost invariably been associated with Śiva (the association of Rudra, the Vedic counterpart of Śiva, with Marutgaṇas should be noted in this connection). Śiva is sometimes described in the Mahābhārata as Gaṇeśvara, and this may also explain his ideological association with Gaṇapati.² The elephant-head of