J. Willis, Dancing Ganesha

3D Model

Ganesha is the Hindu god believed to assist worshipers who are beginning something new (business, marriaige, hourney, etc.), or wish to have barriers removed to ongoing efforts. Ganesha’s mother is the goddess Pavarti, the consort of the god Shiva. Though there is more than one story regarding Ganesha’s origin, the prevalent one says that Pavarti created Ganesha to protect her while she bathed. Shiva later wished to enter the bath. Ganesha - who was unknown to Shiva - denied Shiva entry, so Shiva decapitated Ganesha. After Pavarti observed this tragis mistake, Shiva replaced Ganaesha’s head with that of the first animal that he ecountered - an elephant, with the remainder of his body being a young child.

A festival dedicated to Ganesha occurs in August and September, when clay statues to him are created and decorated, and later dissolved in water.

According to E. Osborn Martin (1914), the name is based on Gana-Isa, or “Lord of the Ganas”, those ‘inferior’ deities that attend Shiva.