Lord Ganesha, as a deity is revered and worshipped in all religious and spiritual sects of India, i.e., the main Vedic Hindu sect as well as Jain, Bauddha, Tantrik and Sikh.  Even outside India, especially South-east Asia, China and Japan have adopted Ganesha as a deity and Ganesha idols and motifs, modern and ancient, can be found throughout the world.

Ganesha is worshipped mainly as:

• ‘Prathamesha’ (प्रथमेश) The foremost among all deities


• ‘Wighneshwara’ (विघ्नेश्वर) The Lord and remover of obstacles


• ‘Buddhipati’ (बुद्धिपति) The Lord of wisdom and intelligence


• ‘Siddhi-pati’ (सिद्धिपति) The Lord of accomplishments, the giver of success


• ‘Ruddhi-pati’ (ऋद्धिपति) The bestower of prosperity


• ‘GaNapati’ (गणपति) The Chief of troops of Lord Shiva


• ‘Waradaraaja’ (वरदराज) The bestower of boons- spiritual and material


• ‘Omkaara-swaruupa’ (ॐकार-स्वरूप) The Supreme Lord of sounds  “ ॐ ”

According to the GaNesha-puraaNa गणेशपुराण, GaNesha is the son of Shiwa-Paarwatii
शिव-पार्वती and the younger brother of Kaartikeya कार्तिकेय. While Kaartikeya is the Commander-in-chief of the military of all Gods, Lord GaNesha is the commander-in-chief of the military of Lord Shiva’s troops.

 

गणेशचतुर्थी

The chaturthii (चतुर्थी ‘forth day’) of the bright half of Bhaadrapada (भाद्रपद) month as per the Hindu शक  calendar is observed as GaNesha-Chaturthii and a 10-day festival known as Ganeshotsawa गणेशोत्सव begins on this day which culminates on the Ananta-chaturdashii (अनन्तचतुर्दशी) day. This year GaNesha-Chaturthii falls on 1st September 2011.

Clay-idols of Lord Ganesha are brought in homes and placed in colorfully decorated platforms or shrines. The host performing the puujaa (पूजा ‘worship’) invokes life into the idol by chanting sacred hymns and thereafter a ritualistic puujaa is performed. People collectively sing traditional devotional songs to the Lord, knows as aaratii (आरती).
A special sweet named ‘modak’ (मोदक prepared by enclosing a mixture of grated coconut and jaggery into a covering of rice/wheat flour) is offered to the Lord and then distributed to devotees.

The idol is worshipped every morning and evening till the final day. On the final day, a special puujaa is again offered followed by aaratii. A farewell procession of the idol takes place and the idol is then immersed in the nearest water-body like a pond, lake, river or ocean. Although majority of domestic idols are immersed on the 5th/7th day, some homes traditionally do this on the 2nd/3rd day itself. 

Many homes also have a tradition of bringing idols of Goddess Gaurii (गौरी) on the 3rd day, which are immersed along with Ganesh idols. Gaurii tradition varies widely as per every home and has been a subject of research for students of mythology and religion for long.

In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak the Indian freedom fighter and social reformer transformed the domestic into a well organized public event. Since then, Ganeshotsawa is being celebrated not only in India but across the globe.

Special features of the public Ganeshotsawa celebration are:

• Worships accompanied by literary and art performances, discourses, etc.
• Community service activities like free medical camp, blood donation, etc.

Pompous processions are undertaken during immersion of the idols, which include dance and singing along with local and popular bands playing folk/contemporary popular music.

On the eve of Ganesha-Chaturthii, let’s invoke Lord Ganesha and pray for his blessings::

* Note: The Hindus believe that there are four purposes of human life, known as पुरुषार्थ (PuruShaartha) viz. धर्म (Dharma ‘righteousness’), अर्थ (artha ‘earning livelihood’), काम (kaama ‘fulfilling ones worldly desires’) and मोक्ष (mokSha ‘salvation’). Every devout Hindu tries to achieve moksha (‘salvation’ i.e. freedom from the cycle of birth and death) by performing the first three to the best of his capacity.

Grammatical Note: In the Dewanaagarii script, the sound of म् (m) is always written this way unless it is immediately followed by another consonant, in which case it changes to an अनुस्वार (anuswaara) ‘a dot over the previous letter’.

Hence, in the original verse, the words देवं, गौरीपुत्रं, भक्तावासं are written with an anuswaara because they all have consonant sounds immediately after them, as against in the translation table where they appear as देवम् गौरीपुत्रम् etc., since they do not have anything after them. The word विनायकम् however, appears with a म् in the verse as well as the table since, there is no consonant after it in either places.