Shiva’s wife is Parvati - Goddess of Power. Parvati wanted to take a bath in private and felt her husband would intrude. She asked her attendants to keep him away while she bathed. However, their loyalties were to Shiva moreso than Parvati, and they would not/could not stop him from entering. So she decided to create a being who would be loyal only to her, and she created a powerful child, Ganesh. Ganesh stood outside her door while she bathed. Shiva wanted to enter, and Ganesh refused, saying the orders of his mother were not to be disobeyed. Shiva, enraged, sent his attendents to take care of Ganesh. They could not. Shiva sent his armies at Ganesh. Ganesh subdued them. Eventually, Shiva was able to wait till Ganesh was preoccupied with another assailant, and then cut off his head. Parvati, once she found out, demanded answers. Shiva, realizing what he had done, asked his attendents to search the forest, and that the head of the first creature they saw, they should bring back. They found an elephant, and Shiva placed the head on Ganesh’s body.
**2.) Why worship Ganesh? **
Ganesh is the remover of obstacles. He has the unique position of being the first God invoked at any ceremony to make sure the rest of it will go obstacle-free. I’ve heard two stories as to why that is so - the first is that simply Shiva granted him this honor as a reparation for cutting off his head. The second, more interesting story, is of a race between Ganesh and his brother Kartik. Shiva was to grant the “remover of obstacles” and “first-worship” honor to one of the two who could circle the world 3 times fastest. Kartik immediately took off, being of the strong warrior ilk. Ganesh, a pot-bellied smallish sort, would have no hope of matching Kartik step for step. Instead, Ganesh simply circled his parents (Shiva and Parvati) three times, since they contstituted the “World” for him and the rest of existence. Shiva, seeing this wisdom, granted Ganesh the honors.
If anyone wants further details, I can post an URL to a deeper story.
first of all,
i'm sorry for the late reply, i was quite busy with my studies.
anyways
Thank you for the story behind ganesh.
Now my quetiosn,concerning the story you stated,"asked his attendents to search the forest, and that the head of the first creature they saw, they should bring back. They found an elephant, and Shiva placed the head on Ganesh's body."
god shiva, all powerful, WHY didn't he place the head of the ganesh itself?he was all powerful,and is being called god,the word "god" has a very lenghty discription behind it.Its not "hard" for "god" to place the original head back on the body, why would god ask attendents to look for someother head?
If god cannot place the original head back,for any reason what so ever! he is not to be called "god".
Fine, then you don't have to call him God. Call him whatever you like. It's not like Shiva stops becoming what he is based on what you think he is. It's not like any Shaivite stops thinking Shiva is who he is based on what you think he is. It's not like what you think of Shiva has really any effect on you. And as a Hindu, it really is your own personal choice to find out really if these myths have any meaning for you or not. Your spirituality is result of finding the best path for you to take.
Instead, you have some really odd concepts of God. In the last century alone, this world has seen two great world wars, several other major wars, mass cultural genocides, and atrocities committed against countless numbers of people. Others who have followed their own God's Law to a tee (Leviticus of the Jews, Quranic Halal, Shaivite Thirukural), they still suffer from conditions such as all types of cancer, arthritis, sickle-cell anemia, Parkinson's, osteoporosis, poverty, and countless other afflictions. Your concept of God, the Creator, has the power to wipe all problems away in a snap, and in fact, he has the power to make heaven on earth. Yet, he does not. That is God's will - and still He is the most merciful. So why can God's will be so questionable in one plane of existence, but not another?
Perhaps God is not all-powerful like you think he is. Perhaps creation was not a willful act by a God. Perhaps instead creation is an act of God that simply happens, because that is the basic potential energy of God - like when I pick up a ball and let it go - it spontaneously falls down, not because the ball decided it wanted to fall, but because that is the nature of gravity and the ball - not a conscious decision of the ball at all. In this example, the Ultimate Reality was not the ball's falling, but the effect of gravity on any object - and like manifestation in general, the Ultimate Reality may not be some conscious decision of a Creator, but instead, there is an underlying principle whose understanding leads us to being-knowledge-bliss.
[This message has been edited by astrosfan (edited September 10, 2000).]