Ganesha

Shiva had just realized that he had made a terrible mistake. Before the door to a private room, the young boy who had been standing guard now lay still. He was Shiva's own son, a son the god had never met and had not yet recognized. In a moment of anger, Shiva had raised his hand against his own child.

Parvati, the boy's mother, wept and wept. She had shaped him with her own hands from fragrant turmeric paste, so that someone would watch over her private rooms while Shiva was away. Now the whole room sank into grief.

But Shiva did not stop at remorse. At once he ordered his band of divine warriors to go north. They were to find the first creature facing that direction and bring its head back. In Hindu tradition, the north is the holy direction. The warriors flew off like the wind.

The first creature they met was an elephant. Its gentle head was carried back and set on the boy's body. And, wonder of wonders, the boy came back to life. Shiva embraced his son and gave him a name that would be spoken for generations: Ganesha. It is the story of a father who made a mistake, then hurried to put it right with all his love.

That, as Hindu tradition tells it, is how one of the most lovable gods of India was born, in a form like no other. He has the head of an elephant, big ears and a long trunk. He has a round, full belly, called Lambodara, which means big belly. In Hindu belief, as the Brahmanda Purana puts it, all the universes of the past, the present and the future fit inside that belly. It is a belly that can digest everything in the world without the slightest fuss.

Then there is the mount beneath him. This great god rides a tiny mouse named Mushika. It sounds funny. But behind it lies a deep meaning. In Hindu tradition, the mouse stands for the restless ego, for desires that scurry about everywhere. Ganesha sits firmly on the mouse's back, which means he has mastered that ego and those desires. They carry him where he goes, but they no longer steer him.

He has one more endearing feature: a broken tusk. People call him Ekadanta, which means one tusk. And here is the loveliest story about that tusk.

The legend goes that the sage Vyasa wanted to set down the Mahabharata, an epic more than 100,000 verses long. He needed a scribe who was quick enough and wise enough. Only Ganesha could do it. Ganesha agreed, on one condition: Vyasa had to recite in one unbroken flow, without stopping. Vyasa wisely set a condition in return. Ganesha could write a verse only after he had fully understood it. So the two went on, one reciting and the other thinking, and the words flowed like a stream.

Then, partway through, Ganesha's pen broke. He snapped off his own tusk, dipped it in ink and kept writing, so the verse never lost a beat. This god gave a part of his own body to knowledge. That is why he holds the broken tusk in his hand to this day.

In Hindu tradition, Ganesha is called Vighnaharta, the Remover of Obstacles. Before anything new, before every ritual and every beginning, Hindus pray to him first, so that the road ahead will be smooth. But he has another name too, playful yet serious: Vighnakarta, the Creator of Obstacles. For those who are unworthy, he places extra obstacles in the way as a test. It is the same power working in two directions, depending on the heart of the one who prays.

Ganesha did not stay in India alone. He sailed with merchants across the sea to all of Southeast Asia. In Thailand he is called Phra Phikanet, and Thailand's Fine Arts Department took his image as its official emblem, honoring him as the patron of the arts. In Cambodia he was held in very high honor. In Indonesia, from Java to Bali, his statues stand at more than 15 ancient sites, among them the famous temple complex of Prambanan.

And then he came to the central coast of Vietnam itself. Champa was an ancient kingdom on the central and southern coast of what is now Vietnam. There, the Cham also carved Ganesha in stone.

Today, at the Museum of Cham Sculpture in Da Nang, a sandstone statue of Ganesha stands in silence. It once stood at Tower E5 of the Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary. It was carved between the 7th and the 8th centuries. The statue was excavated in 1903, then moved to the museum in 1918. This elephant-headed god has stood in what is now Vietnam for more than 1,000 years.

In a cool hall of the museum beside the Hàn River, that stone statue still stands, round-bellied and wide-eared. Its gentle eyes look toward the people who have just walked in. He is the god of beginnings, the lovable god whose belly holds the universe and whose tusk broke for knowledge, and he has waited in Da Nang for many generations. Perhaps he is still smiling, ready to clear a few obstacles from the road of anyone about to begin something new.