The inscrutable East, birthplace of most major religions.

 

Cass Gilber, the architect of the building wrote, "In the lap of the central figure is the idol, symbol of false worship, while above the right shoulder of the figure is seen the rising luminous cross of Christianity, symbol of hope, which found its birth place on the continent of Asia"

Came across an antique contraption at a rummage sale. It was a wooden framework supporting a large magnifying glass that was designed for viewing photographs. I learned later this device is known as a monoscope. Anyway I peered into the glass and was amazed to see this image of a Victorian era woman posed for a cabinet photo wearing a mourning dress. The photo was so clear it was as if it was taken yesterday rather than 140 years ago. It's one of those photos where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...the curled hair, the beads, high collar, puffed shoulders, and her gaze. I even noticed catch lights in her eyes. But most of all that inscrutable expression, almost but not quite a smile. I thought perhaps this was taken later in the mourning phases because of the absence of a hat or veil. Back in the moment, I simply lifted my camera and focused in on the glass lens and captured this image. The highlights caused by overhead fluorescent lighting only added to the effect.

Interestingness - Top 500 (October 25, 2005 #320)

 

'I want to catch that birdie!!' On Black

 

I was trying to take some good shots of our precious kitty Bonnabelle in natural light. I still call her a kitty even though she's 13 years old. She's very special to us because she's had diabetes for over 3 years, so we have to give her insulin shots every day. She's still incredibly healthy and vibrant. As I was shooting, a bird flew overhead and I happened to get this shot of her watching it.

 

Added to the Cream of the Crop pool as my most interesting photo!

 

To My Cat

HALF loving-kindliness and half disdain,

Thou comest to my call serenely suave,

With humming speech and gracious gestures grave,

In salutation courtly and urbane;

Yet must I humble me thy grace to gain,

For wiles may win thee though no arts enslave,

And nowhere gladly thou abidest save

Where naught disturbs the concord of thy reign.

Sphinx of my quiet hearth! who deign’st to dwell

Friend of my toil, companion of mine ease,

Thine is the lore of Ra and Rameses;

That men forget dost thou remember well,

Beholden still in blinking reveries

With sombre, sea-green gaze inscrutable.

-- Rosamund Marriott Watson

"Only two things are known for sure about the mysterious Pyro: he sets things on fire and he doesn't speak. In fact, only the part about setting things on fire is undisputed. Some believe his occasional rasping wheeze may be an attempt to communicate through a mouth obstructed by a filter and attached to lungs ravaged by constant exposure to his asbestos-lined suit. Either way, he's a fearsome, inscrutable, on-fire Frankenstein of a man - if he even is a man."

 

From Team Fortress 2. Check the bio page for more info. No video yet. :(

 

This is one of the figures where balance is a big issue. With the large weapon, I've got to make sure that the legs are positioned far enough in front. The tank in the back also helps to balance it out. Of course, without the weapon this figure cannot stand as shown!

I have been talking with a fascinating scientist who’s working on genetically-modified neurons to innervate the brain from a silicon substrate. The goal — connect prosthetics to the cranial nerves and eventually, replace all sensory input to the brain with a computer interface. Well… how complicated would this be? While the human brain has 86 billion neurons, he estimates that there are only 4 million cranial nerves to connect, and 3 million of them come from the retina (the color-coded photoreceptors).

 

Who might volunteer to have their head and spinal cord cut out of their body and their skull removed, to be reborn as a cyborg, fed by an ECMO machine? Many terminally ill cancer patients have not suffered a neurodegenerative disease. Their body will die while the mind is still ripe.

 

I do not believe we will be able to upload our consciousness to a silicon substate, as Ray Kurzweil has long predicted, at least not any time earlier than we will grow an AI that exceeds human intelligence. The brain in a vat is very different. A prosthetic hijacking of the interface to the sensory cortex is a much simpler task. The inscrutable complexity of the cortex remains just that. We just need to couple to the extant external interface to the body.

 

He makes it sound… imminent. While the sensory cortex is notable for its neuroplasticity, (the ability to remodel sensory input), can it be this dramatic — from body to borg?

 

I thought of the adage from Hunter S. Thompson that arose while watching a boxing match on an ether binger: “Kill the body and the head will die.”

 

Thanks to Genevieve being an MIT alumnus, I can get behind the paywall of the MIT Technology Review October issue on the Mind. Professor Lisa Feldman of Northeastern postulates a problem: “Your brain did not evolve to think, feel, and see. It evolved to regulate your body. Your thoughts, feelings, senses, and other mental capacities are consequences of that regulation. Since allostasis [regulation of body systems] is fundamental to everything you do and sense, consider what would happen if you didn’t have a body. A brain born in a vat would have no bodily systems to regulate. It would have no bodily sensations to make sense of. It could not construct value or affect. A disembodied brain would therefore not have a mind. I’m not saying that a mind requires an actual flesh-and-blood body, but I am suggesting that it requires something like a body, full of systems to coordinate efficiently in an ever-changing world. Your body is part of your mind—not in some gauzy, metaphorical way, but in a very real brain-wiring way.

 

Your thoughts and dreams, your emotions, even your experience right now as you read these words, are consequences of a central mission to keep you alive, regulating your body by constructing ad hoc categories. Most likely, you don’t experience your mind in this way, but under the hood (inside the skull), that’s what is happening.”

 

She elaborates, as you might assume: “When your brain remembers, it re-creates bits and pieces of the past and seamlessly combines them. We call this process ‘remembering,’ but it’s really assembling. In fact, your brain may construct the same memory (or, more accurately, what you experience as the same memory) in different ways each time. I’m not speaking here of the conscious experience of remembering something, like recalling your best friend’s face or yesterday’s dinner. I’m speaking of the automatic, unconscious process of looking at an object or a word and instantly knowing what it is. Every act of recognition is a construction. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. Likewise for all your other senses. Just as your memory is a construction, so are your senses. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel is the result of some combination of stuff outside and inside your head. Affect is just a quick summary of your brain’s beliefs about the metabolic state of your body, like a barometer reading of sorts.

 

Brains evolved to control bodies. Over evolutionary time, many animals evolved larger bodies with complex internal systems that needed coordination and control. A brain is sort of like a command center to integrate and coordinate those systems. It shuttles necessary resources like water, salt, glucose, and oxygen where and when they are needed. This regulation is called allostasis; it involves anticipating the body’s needs and attempting to meet them before they arise. If your brain does its job well, then through allostasis, the systems of your body get what they need most of the time.

 

To accomplish this critical metabolic balancing act, your brain maintains a model of your body in the world. The model includes conscious stuff, like what you see, think, and feel; actions you perform without thought, like walking; and unconscious stuff outside your awareness. For example, your brain models your body temperature. This model governs your awareness of being warm or cold, automatic acts like wandering into the shade, and unconscious processes like changing your blood flow and opening your pores. In every moment, your brain guesses (on the basis of past experience and sense data) what might happen next inside and outside your body, moves resources around, launches your actions, creates your sensations, and updates its model. This model is your mind, and allostasis is at its core.”

 

Anil Seth from the University of Sussex phrases it more strongly in Our brains exist in a state of controlled hallucination: “The brain is always constructing models of the world to explain and predict incoming information; it updates these models when prediction and the experience we get from our sensory inputs diverge.

 

The entirety of perceptual experience is a neuronal fantasy that remains yoked to the world through a continuous making and remaking of perceptual best guesses, of controlled hallucinations. You could even say that we’re all hallucinating all the time. It’s just that when we agree about our hallucinations, that’s what we call reality.”

 

P.S. photo above is a movie prop from Robocop 2

Non-Sporting Group: The Chow Chow, an all-purpose dog of ancient China, presents the picture of a muscular, deep-chested aristocrat with an air of inscrutable timelessness. Dignified, serious-minded, and aloof, the Chow Chow is a breed of unique delights.

This is Margareta, Carin's sister.

 

When I picked up this album, this was the first photo to capture my attention - it had time and place encapsulated. And that smile leaped out.

 

But now, strangely, I'm more intrigued by Carin and the last photo I posted from the album. She's inscrutable.

 

Above this photo in the album, Marianne has written: "Yves Menard* - Ma".

 

* I can't be sure about the spelling of the surname.

One of the pair of dandelion fountains at 1345 Avenue of the Americas, New York. The fountains are not on every day, and not at all in the winter, and then they just stand there, inscrutable stars of metal tubes.

 

But at certain times late in the day in the summer, they are caught by light reflected from down the side street, and they light up in all their glory, watery dandelions glowing in the darkness of the avenue.

DRevD has some wonderful frames he's shared, and this is one of them! I bricked it up to the best of my ability, but I sorta played around with leaving the head off.

 

I must follow the inscrutable exhortations of my soul.

God is a spirit which cannot be seen, a being which cannot be touched. For this reason, and for no other, men dismiss the idea of God as a fantasy. Yet despite not seeing Him, the evidence of HIs work is all around us in magnificent splendour!

Look up- that beautiful lake, this flowery, rock strewn earth, the trees, mountains, rivers, the many seas; that great deep sea of azure that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the black or white clouds; the hail or sleet, rain, snow of seasons, what is it? After all our science and sciences our world is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more!

 

Dare to pause and muse over the wonder of it all! Dare to refute and deny that all around us is the novel of a Divine Author whose brilliance shines forth on each new day. Yet we do not need to look outside of ourselves to find examples of His handiwork. Let us look at ourselves, at man, who was created in the image of God!

 

But now if all things whatsoever that we look upon are emblems to us of the Highest God, I add that more so than any of them is man such an emblem. The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself I, Hmmm, what words have we for such things? We are a breath of heaven- the Highest Being reveals Himself in us! This body, these faculties, this life of ours, is not a vestibule for the unnamed! There is but one Temple in the universe, says the devout Novalis, and that is the body of man!

 

We are the miracle of miracles, the great inscrutable mystery of God. We cannot understand it, we know not how to speak of it; but we feel and know, if we like, that it is so.

 

God created the heavens and the earth-- all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss... -- Genesis 1:1-2

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Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

 

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

 

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

 

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

 

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

 

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

 

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

 

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

 

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

 

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

 

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

 

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

 

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

 

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

 

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

 

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

 

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

 

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

 

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

 

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

 

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

 

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

 

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

 

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

 

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

 

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition. Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

 

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

 

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

 

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

 

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Bou

Satoru: *against Magpie’s lips* “I love you.”

 

Magpie: *against Ru’s lips* “Then marry me, you stupid man.”

 

Satoru: *pulls away* “Right now?”

 

Magpie: “Yes, right now. Satoru Eto, will you marry me?”

 

Satoru: *devastating smile bursts forth, laughs* “Yes.”

 

Magpie: “You just made two women in this house very happy.”

 

Satoru: “I desperately hope one of them is you, but who’s the other?”

 

Magpie: “Yuri. You’re about to get a first row seat to what your cousin can do.”

 

Satoru: “Meaning?”

 

Magpie: “Meaning Yuri thrives on accomplishing the impossible. In fact, if she ran your corporation, you would have already conquered the world, beautified it mercilessly, and taught everyone how to bake cookies for good measure. We’ll be married in high style before you can say ‘I do’…*yells* YURI! COULD YOU COME HERE, PLEASE?”

 

--A rapid tattoo of footsteps, punctuated by the bedroom door swinging open—

 

Yuri: *quickly surveys the couple in front of her, face inscrutable* “Yes?”

 

Magpie: *turns to face Yuri, expression joyous* “We want to get married as soon as possible. Here. Small, informal. Can you do it?”

 

Fashion Credits

**Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes) were done by me unless otherwise stated.**

 

Yuri

Bikini and Caftan: Mattel – The Barbie Look Collection – Poolside Barbie Fashion

Belt: Mattel – Top Model Nikki

Headscarf: Unknown

Shoes: IT – Fashion Royalty – Exotic Fire Veronique

Earrings: IT – Fashion Royalty – Foreign Affair Veronique

Bracelets: Me

 

Dolls is a Nu.Fantasy Little Red Riding Hood Yuri transplanted to a NuFace body.

 

Magpie

Bikini: Mattel – My Scene Barbie

Sweater: I believe it’s by Karen Kolkman, but I’m not 100% certain.

Sandals: IT – Fashion Royalty – Capricious Natalia

Earrings: Me

Necklace: Origin unknown

 

Doll is a Wild at Heart Lilith re-rooted by the brilliant valmaxi(!!!).

 

Satoru

Underwear: IT – Fashion Royalty – Homme – Power Couple Francisco

 

Doll is a Mission Moscow Takeo

 

Tabernaemontana has a pan-tropical distribution, found in Asia, Africa, Australia, North America, South America, and a wide assortment of oceanic islands. These plants are evergreen shrubs and small trees growing to 1–15 m tall. The leaves are opposite, 3–25 cm long, with milky sap; hence it is one of the diverse plant genera commonly called “milkwood” or a variation on milk. The flowers are fragrant, white, usually 0.5–2 inches (1–5 cm) in diameter. Tabernaemontana litoralis is a tropical tree found from southern Mexico, Central America to northern Columbia. This is a very rare tropical tree with large white fragrant flowers with an unusual pinwheel shape. Stemmadenia litoralis Is a synonym for Tabernaemontana litoralis for the usual inscrutable reasons.

A cat - Jorge Luis Borges

 

Are no longer silent, mirrors

no more furtive dawn adventurer;

six, under the moon, the panther

that we perceive we are given from a distance.

By the decree of an inscrutable

God will seek in vain;

most remote of the Ganges and the western

yours is the solitude, your secret.

Caress your back condescends

slow my hand. You accepted

that eternity which is already forgetting,

the love of one hand fearful.

You are in another time. Are master

a closed dress like a dream.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

A un gatto - Jorge Luis Borges

 

Non sono più silenziosi gli specchi

nè più furtiva l'alba avventuriera ;

sei, sotto la luna, quella pantera

che a noi ci è dato percepire da lontano.

Per opera indecifrabile di un decreto

divino ti cerchiamo invano;

più remoto del Gange e del Ponente

tua è la solitudine, tuo il segreto.

La tua schiena accondiscende la carezza

lenta della mia mano. Hai accolto,

da quella eternità che è già oblio,

l'amore di una mano timorosa.

Sei in un altro tempo. Sei il padrone

di un abito chiuso come un sogno.

In Paradise we will ponder the glory of God. “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33 ESV).

 

Don’t assume we will ever exhaust our study of God. Endless attributes await us. His grace will increasingly stun, wisdom progressively astound, and perfection ever more sharpen into focus. Our minds will be healthy, imaginations pure. Since we are made in the image of our Creator, we will create.

 

Who would think God would have creative work for us in Paradise? Then again, who would have thought God would give work to Adam? But he did. And Adam put his brand-new brain to work. Can’t we expect to do the same?

 

What Happens Next

Read more What Happens Next -Max Lucado

 

vinpearl.com/en/hue-imperial-city-an-ultimate-guide-for-s...

Copyright © Susana Mulé

© All rights reserved.

© Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission

A breach of copyright has legal consequences

If you are interested in this picture, please contact me. Thanks.

susanamul@yahoo.com.ar

 

"Sobre héroes y tumbas" de Ernesto Sábato transcurre en buena parte en el PARQUE LEZAMA ubicado en San Telmo, donde se supone es el lugar aproximado en que don Pedro de Mendoza realizó la Primera Fundación de Buenos Aires.

 

En 1963, Piazzolla compuso Introducción a “Héroes y tumbas”, un drama musical que por entonces se estaba haciendo en base a la novela de Ernesto Sabato. La introducción de Piazzolla remite a un extracto de “Informe sobre ciegos”. Se trata de una pieza instrumental especialmente oscura a la que se suma hacia el final una voz que recita la invocación a los dioses de las tinieblas.

 

Oh, dioses de la noche, de la melancolía y del suicidio.

Oh, dioses de las ratas y las cavernas, de los murciélagos, de las cucarachas.

Oh, violentos e inescrutables dioses del sueño y de la muerte.

Oh, dioses de las tinieblas, del incesto y del crimen.

 

La voz que recita estos versos en el disco de Astor Piazzolla y su nuevo octeto -por aquel entonces- “Tango Contemporáneo”, es la del mismo Ernesto Sabato.

fuente: revistaaxolotl.com.ar/vvocce08.htm

 

"On Heroes and Tombs" by Ernesto Sabato goes largely located in the Parque Lezama in San Telmo, which supposedly is the approximate location where Don Pedro de Mendoza held the First Foundation of Buenos Aires.

 

In 1963, Piazzolla wrote Introduction to "Heroes and Tombs", a musical drama that was then being done based on the novel by Ernesto Sabato. The introduction of Piazzolla refers to an excerpt from "Report on blind". This is a particularly dark instrumental piece that adds to the end a voice reciting the invocation to the gods of darkness.

 

Oh, gods of the night, melancholy and suicide.

Oh, gods of rats and caves, the bats, the Roaches.

Oh, violent, inscrutable gods of sleep and death.

Oh, gods of darkness, incest and murder.

 

The voice recites these verses in the album of Astor Piazzolla and his new byte-by then-"Modern Tango" is the same Ernesto Sabato.

source: revistaaxolotl.com.ar/vvocce08.htm

On the far bank as I walked the Taunton Bridgwater Canal near Creech St Michael.

Tokyo, Shibuya / 渋谷 - Among the fancy crowd, in January.

  

See Street B&W

 

Copyright 2010 © Gérald Verdon Photography

 

Join me on Google+, it's a great place for photographers!

Jean Tinguely (1925 – 1991)

The machine sculptures engage in a loud and multi-coloured conversation with the onlooker: Through his works, Jean Tinguely communicates and interacts with the spectator. The machine functions and becomes art. Tinguely’s artworks sparkle with wit, vitality, irony and poetry. Seen against a deeper background, though, they also reveal a feeling for tragicomedy, for the enigmatic and inscrutable.

 

Never expected this to get into Explore... thank you for your interest in the work of Jean Tinguely!

www.tinguely.ch/en/museum_sammlung/jean_tinguely.html

Kumi: “Caid, at Molly’s behest. It seems she’s concerned about the toxic man stank leeching out from back here. *voice sweet, expression cold* It’s not good to upset the patient, y’know? Charley, you want me to sit with you for a while?”

 

Charley: *peeks out from the covers, meets Kumi’s eyes* “Yes.”

 

Kumi: “There you have it. She wants me—and she can take or leave me on a good day. Guess that shows just how pissed off she is at you two right now.”

 

Diego: *crosses arms tightly* “I don’t really care if she’s pissed off or not. The end justifies the means.”

 

Kumi: *claps mockingly* “Good job! I believe you just pinpointed the reason why she’s not dating you, crude-n-brood.”

 

Diego: *scowls and shoves hands into pockets*

 

Dane (haughtily): “I’m being perfectly equitable in my efforts to take care of her. She’s simply not the most…receptive patient.”

 

Kumi (sarcastically): “Yeah because women just looooove it when men swagger into our lives and tell us how to handle our business. Let me put this in clear terms for you, ‘cuz you seem extra blonde today: You don’t speak for her. This is her room, her apartment, and her life. What she says goes, and she wants you out. Charley, you want them to leave the apartment or just the room?”

 

Charley: *still buried under covers* “The room.”

 

Kumi: “You heard her. Scurry. Don’t make me whoop your asses. I’d enjoy it. You wouldn’t. Well, Diego might. I suspect he’s a closet masochist.”

 

Diego: “You suspect wrong.” *studies Kumi with the critical eye of a skilled fighter*

 

Kumi: “Yeah, you can probably take me. But if you’re willing to brawl in here, then you really don’t care about Charley after all, since I don’t see how that would be conducive to a restful atmosphere.”

 

Diego: *glances at the Charley-shaped lump in the middle of the bed, face inscrutable, tersely* “Fine. Living room.” *turns on his heel and stalks out*

 

Kumi: *turns to Dane* “You I can take, Goldilocks, without a doubt. Don’t test me.”

 

Dane: *sets the mug atop the dresser, voice clipped* “I really cannot stand you.”

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Dane

Pants: Kimberlee of Hazel Street Dezigns

Shirt: fakeskin (Etsy.com)

Belt: Mattel – Barbie Collector – Barbie Basics – Look No. 04, Collection 002

Shoes: IT – Homme – Style Strategy Lukas

Necklace: piecemeal here and there

 

Doll is a Night Vision Count Adrian

   

Oh... I love this box! :)

 

Inscrutable Cube (Philip Chapman-Bell)

one uncut square

 

Instructions:

www.flickr.com/photos/oschene/sets/72157632628272836/

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas French, 1834 – 1917

  

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen 1879 Cast 1919-21

Bronze with gauze tutu and silk ribbon, on wooden base.

 

When Dega’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen was first exhibited at the 1881 Impressionist exhibition—modeled in wax, with a real tutu and real hair—reaction was mixed. The figure’s awkward limbs and inscrutable expression seemed at odds with the traditional image of the elegant ballerina. Some critics called the sculpture “hideously ugly,” while others applauded its realism. This bronze was cast from the wax original after Dega’s death.

Acquired by Robert Sterling Clark (Probalby in the 1920s-1955)

 

1955.45

 

From the Website: The Clark

www.clarkart.edu/

www.clarkart.edu/artpiece/detail/Little-Dancer-Aged-Fourteen

   

The inscrutability of English Canada.

MEN LOVE WAR

(“ I don’t know what weapons men will use in the Third World War ,

but in the Fourth it will be sticks and stones”-Einstein)

  

Men love war. In joyous chorus

They sound the colorful call to arms

For the dubious sport of death.

 

They love it with undisguised love.

They parede it in the streets

Create manuals and schools

Raising flags and lowering coffins

Entoning slogans and burying songs.

 

Men love war. And they don’t love war

Merely with athletic courage

And military pride, but with the pious

Voice of the priest, who before the battle

-serves the Host of Death.

 

It was thus in Crimea and Troy

In Eritrea and Angola

In Algiers and Mongolia

In Siberia and Now.

 

Men love war

And can barely stand peace.

Mem love war and so

There is no danger of peace.

Men love war, profane

Or holy, it’s all the same.

 

Men make war their mistress

Although they’re wedded to peace.

And Lord, what ravenous pastures when they meet!

What pleasures! What screams! What moans!

What sublime pervertions schemed

In the shroud of sheets, soiling

The bed or battlefield.

 

For centuries I thought

War was a detour

And peace was the route. Wrong. They’re paralled

Banks of the same river, hand and glove

Foot and boot. More than twins,

Odd and even, good luck and bad,

they’re sword-swallowers,

tail-in-mouth snake, they’re ouroboros

eternally devouring us.

 

War is no intermezzo.

It is part of the show. And not just a tragedy,

It’s comedy two, royal or plebeian.

War is not cruelly unforeseen.

It is recidivistic vice. A rite

Full of risks. Why

It’s better than the circus:

It’s where the happy acrobat

Dressed like a kamikase

Jumps without a rope or net,

All the plates get smashed

And the contortionist breaks in half

In Death’s own Kamasutra.

 

But war is not the opposite of peace

It is its cradle, its complementary teat.

Horror is not the inverse of beauty

-they’re on a par. Men love the beautiful, but

they like horror in art. Horror

is not darkness, it’s counterpart of light.

Lucifer,light-bringer, is brilliant like Gabriel

And terror attracts. Nothing more attracting

-then Christ dead on the cross.

 

War is not, then, just a mass

That the father says, a science

That hallucinates wise, a sport

That fascinates the strong. War is art.

And so wirth the ardor of vanguardist

We attend the Biennial of Horror

And inaugurate the Bauhaus of Death.

 

But atop the carnage are no buzzards,

Jackals, vultures, hyenas.

Only showy heron of aluminum, serene

In their electronic ballet.

 

Perhaps it was the Dance of Death, pathetic.

Not so. It’s just another lesson in aesthetics.

And thus the modern soldiers

Are like doctor and engineers

And no the minister of war

Would wear a butcher’s gear.

 

War is war!

Said the violent invader

Raping the nun in the convent.

War is war!

Said the statue of the admiral

With his mouth full of cement.

War is war!

We say with our radar

Savoring the enemy

Somewhere north ou our resentment.

 

There is no nead, then, no disguise

The love of war was Patriotic Love

Of Defense of Home. We love both war

And peace-will such bigamy ever cease?

I, a poet of today, eternal Baudelaire,

You and I, mon hypocrite lecteur,

Mon semblable, mon frère.

 

We want battles, planes in flames,

Sinking ships, the spectacles of confrontation.

Tomorrow we’ll open up fish bellies

With a bayonet blade.

And when the trumpet plays “Soupy”

We’ll stick our pigs with knives

And pin exquisite medals on

-the dead men on the table.

 

Clean flesch, if posible, no blood.

Let the missile,launched from afar,

In silence, not splatter our clothes.

But if a “blood bath” it be,

Then , as Terece said:” I am human

And nothing human is alien to me.”

 

Death and war, in any case

Will catch me off guard no more.

I inscribe theeir effigy on the stone

As if the dice of my fate

No longer rolled on their own.

As if I passed from white

To black and back to with again

And was never in the dark.

 

So bring on war. Total.

Atomic trumpet blast, beginning of the end.

With caution as befits the sage

I’ll first cry out against what’s done.

But with voraciousness as befits the race

And seeing then invade my garden space

I’ll fashion from the leaves of the banana

An ideological banner

And fulminate my enemy before he can attack.

 

And should he not shoot back or come,

I’ll take advantage of weakling’s slipe,

Invade his house and sate my millenial cannibal-wise

Roaring behind my human mask.

 

-Poet, your words terrify!

(I hear someone say).

Terrified I wrote them.

Now I feel I’m free.

Death and war

No longer frighten me.

Like Oedipus perplexed

I deciphered them in my bowels

Before I was devoured

By the inscrutable sphinx.

 

Neither cynical nor sad. An animal

Human too, I go marching, dancing, praying

Toward the mighty carnival.

Soldier, penitent, poet,

-peace and war, life and death

await for me

-at the atomic funeral.

 

-Will the human species disappear from Earth?

No. There’ll be some new Adam and Eve

To remake love, and two brothers:

-Cain and Abel

- to reinvent war.

 

(VALE A PENA TRADUZIR, É A MAIS PURA REALIDADE....)

"There is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny."

Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness, 1902)

 

Explored Jul.23

www.bing.com/videos/search?q=misunderstood+youtube+pete+t...

 

The grizzly strikes fear into all men. I want to meet the person who disputes that and see what happens when they meet one on a hiking trail. Oh, you had no fear?

 

But.... you see them through the lens and get a glimpse of their true nature. The grizzly bear is everything rolled into one complex animal. He's ferocious, intelligent, playful, inquisitive, shy, confident, indifferent, funny, dangerous.

 

Sometimes I catch a look and it gives me a feeling or reminds me of a song. This one had Pete Townshend's, Misunderstood, written all over it....

 

Just wanna be misunderstood

Wanna be feared in my neighborhood

Just wanna be a moody man

Say things that nobody can understand

 

I wanna be obscure and oblique

Inscrutable and vague

So hard to pin down

I wanna leave open mouths when I speak

Want people to cry when I put them down

As the golden hues of Siskeen’s setting sun spill through the conference room windows, casting long shadows across the sleek wooden desk, Lady Hagathel and Prex Yusai stand on each side of the table. The soft hum of the holoprojector illuminates the room with the blue-tinged images of Jula and Jerro, both awaiting their mother’s instructions from afar. Lady Hagathel’s expression is tense but composed, her gaze steady as she addresses her children with a sense of urgency, aware that swift action is now a necessity. Prex Yusai stands opposite her, observing with an inscrutable calm as she breaks the silence.

 

Lady Hagathel: “Jer, Jula, we must begin quietly moving key ARGO assets from Siskeen to Arkanis. Keep everything low profile; we can’t afford to draw attention.”

 

Prex Yusai: “I can coordinate the initial transfers, Lady Hagathela. We will maintain a standard shipping schedule to avoid suspicion.”

 

Jula: “Thank you, Prex. I will arrange for new facilities on Arkanis. We will need a plan for relocating assets upon arrival here.”

 

Jerro: “Downloading Arkanis transit ledger now. We will send a few suggestions.”

 

Prex Yusai nods…

 

Lady Hagathel: "No need to contact our partners yet. We do not want to alarm anyone. Act quickly and stay vigilant. Prex, keep me informed of any… developments. Jula, Jer, be careful.”

 

Prex Yusai: “Understood, Lady Hagathela.”

 

Jula: “Yes, Mother. We are ready.”

A five-sided twist on a cone.

 

Always wondered why my volubilis experiments never panned out -- that Gottenyu must have started out with a cone. That's not half inscrutable.

Yesterday's ultra-high high tide swept a lot of debris farther up onto the dry sand than I have ever seen the tide do.

 

There were the usual organic objects: crabs in various states of disassembly, kelp, long leafless branches, sea grass and a lot of drying whipped algae.

 

But I'd come for cultural objects and returned home with two bags full.

 

The finds included a much more eroded example of this green plastic stick I came across last week.

 

One of anything isn't significant. Finding two copies of the same object on different days is interesting.

 

I noticed the better preserved specimen had a design on a flat plastic tab at the top. Because of my less than perfect eyesight, I had to photograph the piece using a macro setting to see the details.

 

What I thought was an Asian dragon turned out to a mermaid holding a cup of a steaming beverage. That discovery shattered my dream that this brave stir stick might have crossed the Pacific.

 

My search immediately revealed that I had found a Starbucks® "splash stick."

 

Darn.

 

Here's the back story courtesy of Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune:

 

Solving the mystery of Starbucks little green sticks

 

Mar 11, 2016 | 11:50 AM

 

Starbucks' green plastic sticks are officially called splash sticks.

 

For years now, I have considered Starbucks, like Stonehenge and Saskatchewan, a place of mystery.

 

Yes, there is the question of why anybody older than 19 would want a Frappuccino.

 

There is the puzzlement of why a cautious "Moby-Dick" character, "no crusader after perils," in Melville's words, gets a beverage empire that lusts for global domination named after him.

 

And I still haven't determined if asking for your mocha "extra hot" means anything more to the baristas than asking for a "mocha." "They're all extra hot," a worker once explained to me.

 

But those are minor mysteries compared to the one that's been nagging me for years now: What is the name for those green plastic sticks that plug the hole in your cup lid and keep coffee off of your hands, clothes, car upholstery, etc.?

 

I have been asking baristas the question, usually in the awkward moments after they considered our transaction complete, and haven't learned of any name better than "stoppers."

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But I told of my head-scratching in a recent column that was most directly about the company's changes in its frequent-customer rewards plan.

 

I imagined that someday an underemployed psych major or aspiring playwright in a green apron would share with me her perfect green-stick coinage. But before that could happen, readers of the column chimed in, and I am here to tell you that the mystery has been solved.

 

It's not the dream moniker I had hoped for, one that incorporates the device's essential combination of utility, disposability and green-ness. But it is the correct, official answer.

 

But first, here are some of the other ideas people shared.

 

"I call it a CPB," wrote Elwanda Bennett, a consultant from Houston. "Coffee portal blocker! Have a splendid day!"

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CPB. I like it. Certainly a better name than, say, Mondelez for a massive global food concern.

 

"Those 'little green things' are called 'Cup Harpoons,'" said John Bennett (no relation, I presume), a lawyer out of Florida.

While it is perhaps a more violent image than you want associated with something that comes near your lips, Cup Harpoons does have a certain resonance with Starbucks’ perpetual allusion to whaling.

 

(The company website, incidentally, explains why it is Starbucks as follows: “The name, inspired by Moby Dick, evoked the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders.” It also evoked a maniacally vengeful man being dragged to his death by a sea creature/allegory, but never mind.)

 

Another name for the green things came from one Jenny Martin, location unknown. “I call it a 'Spill Stick,’” she wrote. “Most times the barista understands, but I sometimes use hand motions to help get my point across. I find that when I say it with authority, they assume I know what I'm talking about! Lol! Give it a try some time ... and good luck!”

 

This is not only good advice to follow in life -- use hand motions, speak with authority and, for heaven's sake, LOL once in a while -- but it comes very, very close to solving the mystery.

 

Which I should have known would be solvable.

 

First, if you're a publicly traded international food-and-beverage chain, mystery is the last thing you want. You strive for predictability; you shun inscrutability. You want your windows, both metaphorical and actual, to be crystal clear and sparkling.

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And quite obviously, any company capable of coming up with "Frappuccino" for a slurry of ice, sugar and coffee and willing to foist that term on a previously innocent world has to have an official name for its skinny green coffee stoppers, as well.

 

"Hey Steve," wrote a reader whose e-mail handle is Roxie Hart. "The 'stoppers' are truly named SPLASH STICKS."

 

Ms. Hart, whose name is either shared with or borrowed from the murder-confessing chorus girl at the center of "Chicago," is correct, as were a handful of other readers.

 

Splash sticks were introduced in 2008 via this company post on the My Starbucks Idea blog:

 

“Thanks for your many ideas and comments about providing something for our lids to minimize coffee splashes. As a result of your feedback about spills out of the sip hole, we have been testing splash sticks in limited markets to gauge customer interest (sounds like some of you have seen them). Based on an overwhelmingly positive customer and partner response, we are rolling out splash sticks nationwide this week. Also, to help minimize waste, you can save your splash stick to be cleaned and reused.”

 

So there you have it. Kind of an anti-climax, but a stick that prevents splashes is called a splash stick. Now I'll have to find something else to pester baristas about, such as how there got to be some two dozen Starbucks outlets in Saskatchewan and whether anyone outside of corporate headquarters really calls it a "sip hole."

 

www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-starbucks-little-...

  

In this detailed view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the so-called Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of "Lord of the Rings." The nebula, formally catalogued NGC 6543, is every bit as inscrutable as the J.R.R. Tolkien phantom character. Although the Cat's Eye Nebula was among the first planetary nebula ever to be discovered, it is one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen in space. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers to form bright nebulae with amazing twisted shapes.

Yet another participant at the Civil War encampment that seemed to fit in perfectly. The eyes seem to stare straight through you and the expression is inscrutable. It's probably no coincidence that these reenactors tend to adopt the physical appearance of the historical figures they portray. For me it added greatly to the sense of realism. The setting in a restored century village created the perfect backdrop with period-correct buildings.

No, I knew my way around, but I was lost in my thoughts. Trying to sort out things, issues, the inscrutable future. It was a lost cause; a friend stood me up and made matters worst. I licked my wounds and decided to visit my parents before going home, to find some stability and consolation which only the wisdom of age could offer.

Spotted on St George's Plateau during 2017 Liverpool Pride festivities.

 

(Caption competition time again?)

“Contemplating the teeming life of the shores, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp. What is the message signaled by the hordes of diatoms, flashing their microscopic lights in the night sea? What truth is expressed by the legions of the barnacles, whitening the rocks with their habitations, each small creature within finding the necessities of its existence in the sweep of the surf? And what is the meaning of so tiny a being as the transparent wisp of protoplasm that is a sea lace, existing for some reason inscrutable to us – a reason that demands its presence by the trillion amid the rocks and weeds of the shore? The meaning haunts and ever eludes us, and in its very pursuit we approach the ultimate mystery of Life itself.“

 

Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea, 1955

 

Carson chose this excerpt to be read at her funeral – a fitting tribute to the scientist whose book, Silent Spring, had such a profound impact on our environmental policy and almost single handedly convinced our government to ban DDT forever.

Persepolis, the epitome of the darkness of history and its inscrutable character. The monumental Persian city, now Iranian, was in ancient times the capital of the invincible Persian Achaemenid Empire

Yuri: *skewers Charley with an intimidating look, drawls* “No, darling, something much better: Family and friends on whom I can impose with impunity. What about you? Can you bake? What about Molly?”

 

Charley: *unnerved by Yuri’s directness of gaze* “Uh…*swallows loudly*…huh. Molly is an awesome baker. Candy says her cupcakes rival yours.”

 

Yuri: *eyes narrow* “Really…was she speaking in hyperbole?”

 

Charley: “I don’t think so.”

 

Yuri: *places a hand on hip, face inscrutable* “Do you think Molly’s cupcakes are superb enough to deserve such a lofty distinction?”

 

Charley: “Asking the wrong person. I don’t typically like desserts, unless peanut butter is a major ingredient, and even then a little goes a long way with me.”

 

Yuri: “You do not care for sweet things, yet you are in charge of a bake sale? Darling, you have accepted quite the challenge for yourself.”

 

Charley: “Yeah, if you hadn’t agreed to help, the panic would be setting in about now.”

 

Yuri: “Then it is fortunate for you that this type of challenge amuses me. Molly sounds like she will be a valuable asset to our team…though I seriously doubt her cupcakes are as good as mine. Candy was clearly overwrought from the excess sugar and prone to exaggeration.”

 

Charley: “Um, sure, exaggeration while under the influence…of cupcakes. It’s a thing. Diego’s more into cooking than baking, but he can probably help, too. I’m the weak link out of the three of us, but if you give me a detailed recipe, I can manage fine. Bronte and Fox—she’s another teacher—will probably pitch in as well.”

 

Yuri: “Excellent. Enlist as many volunteers as you can muster, and I shall do the same. *expression turns steely, like a general on the cusp of battle* I need to fetch a pen and notebook. When planning a large-scale event, I find putting pen to paper helps me think more clearly. I shall return presently. Would you mind stirring the pot on the stove whilst I am away? Otherwise, the contents will stick.”

 

Charley: “Sure. I can do that. *watches Yuri hurry from the room, then turns her attention to stirring the concoction on the stove, softly to herself* Holy crap on a cracker…she’s scary.”

 

Kumi: *shuffles into the kitchen barefoot and bleary-eyed, perks up when she sees Charley at the stove, back turned*

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Kumi

Playsuit: Sekiguchi Momoko – Fruit of Passion

Bandeau: Mattel – Generation Girl Chelsea

Earrings: Randall Craig RTW

Belt: Me

 

Doll is Nu.Fantasy Wild Wolf Kumi transplanted to a NuFace body.

 

Charley

Shorts: SL Doll

Shirt: Project MC2 – McKeyla McAlister

Sweater: IT – FR2 – Only Natural Fashion (I added the buttons and removed the pockets.)

Shoes: Sekiguchi Momoko – Ethic Flower

Necklace: Me

  

Congratulations to Intel on their acquisition of Nervana. This photo is from the last board meeting at our offices; the Nervana founders — from right to left: Naveen Rao, Amir Khosrowshahi and Arjun Bansal — pondered where on the wall they may fall during M&A negotiations.

 

We are now free to share some of our perspectives on the company and its mission to accelerate the future with custom chips for deep learning.

 

I’ll share a recap of the Nervana story, from an investor’s perspective, and try to explain why machine learning is of fundamental importance to every business over time. In short, I think the application of iterative algorithms (e.g., machine learning, directed evolution, generative design) to build complex systems is the most powerful advance in engineering since the Scientific Method. Machine learning allows us to build software solutions that exceed human understanding, and shows us how AI can innervate every industry.

 

By crude analogy, Nervana is recapitulating the evolutionary history of the human brain within computing — moving from the logical constructs of the reptilian brain to the cortical constructs of the human brain, with massive arrays of distributed memory and iterative learning algorithms.

 

Not surprisingly, the founders integrated experiences in neuroscience, distributed computing, and networking — a delightful mélange for tackling cognitive computing. Ali Partovi, an advisor to Nervana, introduced us to the company.

 

We were impressed with the founding team and we had a prepared mind to share their enthusiasm for the future of deep learning. Part of that prepared mind dates back to 1989, when I started a PhD in EE focusing on how to accelerate neural networks by mapping them to parallel processing computers. Fast forward 25 years, and the nomenclature has shifted to machine learning and the deep learning subset, and I chose it as the top tech trend of 2013 at the Churchill Club VC debate (video). We were also seeing the powerful application of deep learning and directed evolution across our portfolio, from molecular design to image recognition to cancer research to autonomous driving.

 

All of these companies were deploying these simulated neural networks on traditional compute clusters. Some were realizing huge advantages by porting their code to GPUs; these specialized processors originally designed for rapid rendering of computer graphics have many more computational cores than a traditional CPU, a baby step toward a cortical architecture. I first saw them being used for cortical simulations in 2007. But by the time of Nervana’s founding in 2014, some (e.g., Microsoft’s and Google’s search teams) were exploring FPGA chips for their even finer-grained arrays of customizable logic blocks. Custom silicon that could scale beyond any of these approaches seemed like the natural next step. Here is a page from Nervana’s original business plan (Fig. 1 in comments below).

 

The march to specialized silicon, from CPU to GPU to FPGA to ASIC, had played out similarly for Bitcoin miners, with each step toward specialized silicon obsoleting the predecessors. When we spoke to Amazon, Google, Baidu, and Microsoft in our due diligence, we found a much broader application of deep learning within these companies than we could have imagined prior, from product positioning to supply chain management.

 

Machine learning is central to almost everything that Google does. And through that lens, their acquisition, and new product strategies make sense; they are not traditional product line extensions, but a process expansion of machine leaning (more on that later). They are not just playing games of Go for the fun of it. Recently, Google switched their core search algorithms to deep learning, and they used Deep Mind to cut data center cooling costs by a whopping 40%.

 

The advances in deep learning are domain independent. Google can hire and acquire talent and delight in their passionate pursuit of game playing or robotics. These efforts help Google build a better brain. The brain can learn many things. It is like a newborn human; it has the capacity to learn any of the languages of the world, but based on training exposure, it will only learn a few. Similarly, a synthetic neural network can learn many things.

 

Google can let the Brain team find cats on the Internet and play a great game of Go. The process advances they make in building a better brain (or in this case, a better learning machine) can then be turned to ad matching, a task that does not inspire the best and the brightest to come work for Google.

 

The domain independence of deep learning has profound implications on labor markets and business strategy. The locus of learning shifts from end products to the process of their creation. Artifact engineering becomes more like parenting than programming. But more on that later; back to the Nervana story.

 

Our investment thesis for the Series A revolved around some universal tenets: a great group of people pursuing a product vision unlike anything we had seen before. The semiconductor sector was not crowded with investor interest. AI was not yet on many venture firms’ sectors of interest. We also shared with the team that we could envision secondary benefits from discovering the customers. Learning about the cutting edge of deep learning applications and the startups exploring the frontiers of the unknown held a certain appeal for me. And sure enough, there were patterns in customer interest, from an early flurry in medical imaging of all kinds to a recent explosion of interest in the automotive sector after Tesla’s Autopilot feature went live. The auto industry collectively rushed to catch up.

 

Soon after we led the Series A on August 8, 2014, I found myself moderating a deep learning panel at Stanford with Nervana CEO Naveen Rao.

 

I opened with an introduction to deep learning and why it has exploded in the past four years (video primer). I ended with some common patterns in the power and inscrutability of artifacts built with iterative algorithms. We see this in biology, cellular automata, genetic programming, machine learning and neural networks.

 

There is no mathematical shortcut for the decomposition of a neural network or genetic program, no way to “reverse evolve” with the ease that we can reverse engineer the artifacts of purposeful design.

 

The beauty of compounding iterative algorithms — evolution, fractals, organic growth, art — derives from their irreducibility. (More from my Google Tech Talk and MIT Tech Review)

 

Year 1. 2015

Nervana adds remarkable engineering talent, a key strategy of the first mover. One of the engineers figures out how to rework the undocumented firmware of NVIDIA GPUs so that they run deep learning algorithms faster than off-the-shelf GPUs or anything else Facebook could find. Matt Ocko preempted the second venture round of the company, and he brought the collective learning of the Data Collective to the board.

 

Year 2. 2016 Happy 2nd Birthday Nervana!

The company is heads down on chip development. They share some technical details (flexpoint arithmetic optimized for matrix multiplies and 32GB of stacked 3D memory on chip) that gives them 55 trillion operations per second on their forthcoming chip, and multiple high-speed interconnects (as typically seen in the networking industry) for ganging a matrix of chips together into unprecedented compute fabrics. 10x made manifest. See Fig. 2 below.

 

And then Intel came knocking.

With the most advanced production fab in the world and a healthy desire to regain the mantle of leading the future of Moore’s Law, the combination was hard to resist. Intel vice president Jason Waxman told Recode that the shift to artificial intelligence could dwarf the move to cloud computing. “I firmly believe this is not only the next wave but something that will dwarf the last wave.” But we had to put on our wizard hats to negotiate with giants.

 

The deep learning and AI sector have heated up in labor markets to relatively unprecedented levels. Large companies are recently paying $6–10 million per engineer for talent acquisitions, and $4–5M per head for pre-product startups still in academia. For the Masters students in a certain Stanford lab, they averaged $500K/yr for their first job offer at graduation. We witnessed an academic turn down a million dollar signing bonus because they got a better offer.

 

Why so hot?

The deep learning techniques, while relatively easy to learn, are quite foreign to traditional engineering modalities. It takes a different mindset and a relaxation of the presumption of control. The practitioners are like magi, sequestered from the rest of a typical engineering process. The artifacts of their creation are isolated blocks of functionality defined by their interfaces. They are like blocks of magic handed to other parts of a traditional organization. (This carries over to the customers too; just about any product that you experience in the next five years that seems like magic will almost certainly be built by these algorithms).

 

And remember that these “brain builders” could join any industry. They can ply their trade in any domain. When we were building the deep learning team at Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), we hired the engineering lead from the Google’s Translate team. Franz Och pioneered Google’s better-than-human translation service not by studying linguistics, grammar, or even speaking the languages being translated. He focused on building the brain that could learn the job from countless documents already translated by humans (UN transcripts in particular). When he came to HLI, he cared about the mission, but knew nothing about cancer and the genome. The learning machines can find the complex patterns across the genome. In short, the deep learning expertise is fungible, and there are a burgeoning number of companies hiring and competing across industry lines.

 

And it is an ever-widening set of industries undergoing transformation, from automotive to agriculture, healthcare to financial services. We saw this explosion in the Nervana customer pipeline. And we see it across the DFJ portfolio, especially in our newer investments. Here are some examples:

 

• Learning chemistry and drug discovery: Here is a visualization of the search space of candidates for a treatment for Ebola; it generated the lead molecule for animal trials. Atomwise summarizes: “When we examine different neurons on the network we see something new: AtomNet has learned to recognize essential chemical groups like hydrogen bonding, aromaticity, and single-bonded carbons. Critically, no human ever taught AtomNet the building blocks of organic chemistry. AtomNet discovered them itself by studying vast quantities of target and ligand data. The patterns it independently observed are so foundational that medicinal chemists often think about them, and they are studied in academic courses. Put simply, AtomNet is teaching itself college chemistry.”

 

• Designing new microbial life for better materials: Zymergen uses machine learning to predict the combination of genetic modifications that will optimize product yield for their customers. They are amassing one of the largest data sets about microbial design and performance, which enables them to train machine learning algorithms that make search predictions with increasing precision. Genomatica had great success in pathway optimization using directed evolution, a physical variant of an iterative optimization algorithm.

 

• Discovery and change detection in satellite imagery: Planet and Mapbox. Planet is now producing so much imagery that humans can’t actually look at each picture it takes. Soon, they will image every meter of the Earth every day. From a few training examples, a convolutional neural net can find similar examples globally — like all new housing starts, all depleted reservoirs, all current deforestation, or car counts for all retail parking lots.

 

• Automated driving & robotics: Tesla, Zoox, SpaceX, Rethink Robotics, etc.

 

• Visual classification: From e-commerce to drones to security cameras and more. Imagen is using deep learning to radically improve medical image analysis, starting with radiology.

 

• Cybersecurity: When protecting endpoint computing & IOT devices from the most advanced cyberthreats, AI-powered Cylance is proving to be a far superior and adaptive approach versus older signature-based antivirus solutions.

 

• Financial risk assessment: Avant and Prosper use machine learning to improve credit verification and merge traditional and non-traditional data sources during the underwriting process.

 

• And now for something completely different: quantum computing. For a wormhole peek into the near future, our quantum computing company, D-Wave Systems, powered a 100,000,000x speedup in a demonstration benchmark for Google, a company that has used D-Wave quantum computers for over a decade now on machine learning applications.

 

So where will this take us?

Neural networks had their early success in speech recognition in the 90’s. In 2012, the deep learning variant dominated the ImageNet competitions, and visual processing can now be better done by machine than human in many domains (like pathology, radiology and other medical image classification tasks). DARPA has research programs to do better than a dog’s nose in olfaction.

 

We are starting the development of our artificial brains in the sensory cortex, much like an infant coming into the world. Even within these systems, like vision, the deep learning network starts with similar low level constructs (like edge-detection) as foundations for higher level constructs like facial forms, and ultimately, finding cats on the internet with self-taught learning.

 

But the artificial brains need not limit themselves to the human senses. With the internet of things, we are creating a sensory nervous system on the planet, with countless sensors and data collecting proliferating across the planet. All of this “big data” would be a big headache but for machine learning to find patterns in it all and make it actionable. So, not only are we transcending human intelligence with multitudes of dedicated intelligences, we are transcending our sensory perception.

 

And it need not stop there. It is precisely by these iterative algorithms that human intelligence arose from primitive antecedents. While biological evolution was slow, it provides an existence proof of the process, now vastly accelerated in the artificial domain. It shifts the debate from the realm of the possible to the likely timeline ahead.

 

Let me end with the closing chapter in Danny Hillis’ CS book The Pattern on the Stone: “We will not engineer an artificial intelligence; rather we will set up the right conditions under which an intelligence can emerge. The greatest achievement of our technology may well be creation of tools that allow us to go beyond engineering — that allow us to create more than we can understand.”

 

-----

Here is some early press:

Xconomy(most in-depth), MIT Tech Review, Re/Code, Forbes, WSJ, Fortune.

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Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty!

Alternate light and day, and the teeming, spiritual darkness;

Unspeakable, high processions of sun and moon, and countless stars, above;

Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees;

With inscrutable purpose—some hidden, prophetic intention;

Now, first, it seems, my thought begins to span thee.

....

 

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!

Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;

For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,

And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

 

O my brave soul!

O farther, farther sail!

O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?

O farther, farther, farther sail!

 

– Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

 

________

 

with warm regards to Samuel Jones

composer of The Seas of God

 

Photo of Apollo LM Eagle by CSM Columbia pilot Michael Collins

 

shared in celebration by Alton’s Images

Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, and also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is a widely worshipped deity in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honoured at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Ganesha is also invoked as patron of letters and learning during writing sessions. Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.

 

Ganesha emerged as a distinct deity in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, during the Gupta Period, although he inherited traits from Vedic and pre-Vedic precursors. He was formally included among the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the 9th century. A sect of devotees called the Ganapatya arose, who identified Ganesha as the supreme deity. The principal scriptures dedicated to Ganesha are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

ETYMOLOGY AND OTHER NAMES

Ganesha has been ascribed many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneshvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri is often added before his name. One popular way Ganesha is worshipped is by chanting a Ganesha Sahasranama, a litany of "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. At least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama exist; one version is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture venerating Ganesha.

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana, meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha, meaning lord or master. The word gaņa when associated with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva. The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation. Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of Hosts" or "Lord of created categories", such as the elements. Ganapati, a synonym for Ganesha, is a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord". The Amarakosha, an early Sanskrit lexicon, lists eight synonyms of Ganesha : Vinayaka, Vighnarāja (equivalent to Vighnesha), Dvaimātura (one who has two mothers), Gaṇādhipa (equivalent to Ganapati and Ganesha), Ekadanta (one who has one tusk), Heramba, Lambodara (one who has a pot belly, or, literally, one who has a hanging belly), and Gajanana; having the face of an elephant).

 

Vinayaka is a common name for Ganesha that appears in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha temples in Maharashtra known as the Ashtavinayak (aṣṭavināyaka). The names Vighnesha and Vighneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) refers to his primary function in Hindu theology as the master and remover of obstacles (vighna).

 

A prominent name for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pillai. A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pillai means a "child" while pillaiyar means a "noble child". He adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk", also "elephant tooth or tusk". Anita Raina Thapan notes that the root word pille in the name Pillaiyar might have originally meant "the young of the elephant", because the Pali word pillaka means "a young elephant".

 

In the Burmese language, Ganesha is known as Maha Peinne, derived from Pali Mahā Wināyaka. The widespread name of Ganesha in Thailand is Phra Phikhanet or Phra Phikhanesuan, both of which are derived from Vara Vighnesha and Vara Vighneshvara respectively, whereas the name Khanet (from Ganesha) is rather rare.

 

In Sri Lanka, in the North-Central and North Western areas with predominantly Buddhist population, Ganesha is known as Aiyanayaka Deviyo, while in other Singhala Buddhist areas he is known as Gana deviyo.

 

ICONOGRAPHY

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art. Unlike those of some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variations and distinct patterns changing over time. He may be portrayed standing, dancing, heroically taking action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down or on an elevated seat, or engaging in a range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the 6th century. The 13th century statue pictured is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900–1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own sect. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973–1200 by Paul Martin-Dubost, and another similar statue is dated c. 12th century by Pratapaditya Pal. Ganesha has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha. He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds a delicacy, which he samples with his trunk, in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature. A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century. Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown. In the standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a pasha (noose) in the other upper arm.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but is turned towards the viewer in a gesture of protection or fearlessness (abhaya mudra). The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing, which is a very popular theme.

 

COMMON ATTRIBUTES

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art. Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got his elephant head. One of his popular forms, Heramba-Ganapati, has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known. While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, he acquires the head later in most stories. The most recurrent motif in these stories is that Ganesha was created by Parvati using clay to protect her and Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant. Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary from source to source. Another story says that Ganesha was created directly by Shiva's laughter. Because Shiva considered Ganesha too alluring, he gave him the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.

 

Ganesha's earliest name was Ekadanta (One Tusked), referring to his single whole tusk, the other being broken. Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk. The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta. Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries). This feature is so important that, according to the Mudgala Purana, two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it: Lambodara (Pot Belly, or, literally, Hanging Belly) and Mahodara (Great Belly). Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly. The Brahmanda Purana says that Ganesha has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs) of the past, present, and future are present in him. The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms. Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts. His earliest images had two arms. Forms with 14 and 20 arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and the 10th centuries. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms. According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vasuki around his neck. Other depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead may be a third eye or the Shaivite sectarian mark , which consists of three horizontal lines. The Ganesha Purana prescribes a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon on the forehead. A distinct form of Ganesha called Bhalachandra includes that iconographic element. Ganesha is often described as red in color. Specific colors are associated with certain forms. Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on Hindu iconography. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati (Ganapati Who Releases from Bondage). Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation in that form.

 

VAHANAS

The earliest Ganesha images are without a vahana (mount/vehicle). Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha uses a mouse (shrew) in five of them, a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation as Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja. Mohotkata uses a lion, Mayūreśvara uses a peacock, Dhumraketu uses a horse, and Gajanana uses a mouse, in the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana. Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse, elephant, tortoise, ram, or peacock.

 

Ganesha is often shown riding on or attended by a mouse, shrew or rat. Martin-Dubost says that the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Ganesha in central and western India during the 7th century; the rat was always placed close to his feet. The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana, where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle in his last incarnation. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag. The names Mūṣakavāhana (mouse-mount) and Ākhuketana (rat-banner) appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.

 

The mouse is interpreted in several ways. According to Grimes, "Many, if not most of those who interpret Gaṇapati's mouse, do so negatively; it symbolizes tamoguṇa as well as desire". Along these lines, Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish. Krishan notes that the rat is destructive and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ (stealing, robbing). It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. According to this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat demonstrates his function as Vigneshvara (Lord of Obstacles) and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāma-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence. Martin-Dubost notes a view that the rat is a symbol suggesting that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.

 

ASSOCIATIONS

 

OBSTACLES

Ganesha is Vighneshvara or Vighnaraja or Vighnaharta (Marathi), the Lord of Obstacles, both of a material and spiritual order. He is popularly worshipped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Paul Courtright says that "his task in the divine scheme of things, his dharma, is to place and remove obstacles. It is his particular territory, the reason for his creation."

 

Krishan notes that some of Ganesha's names reflect shadings of multiple roles that have evolved over time. Dhavalikar ascribes the quick ascension of Ganesha in the Hindu pantheon, and the emergence of the Ganapatyas, to this shift in emphasis from vighnakartā (obstacle-creator) to vighnahartā (obstacle-averter). However, both functions continue to be vital to his character.

 

BUDDHI (KNOWLEDGE)

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of letters and learning. In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect. The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, when many stories stress his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya. This name also appears in a list of 21 names at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama that Ganesha says are especially important. The word priya can mean "fond of", and in a marital context it can mean "lover" or "husband", so the name may mean either "Fond of Intelligence" or "Buddhi's Husband".

 

AUM

Ganesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum, also spelled Om. The term oṃkārasvarūpa (Aum is his form), when identified with Ganesha, refers to the notion that he personifies the primal sound. The Ganapati Atharvashirsa attests to this association. Chinmayananda translates the relevant passage as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire [Agni] and air [Vāyu]. You are the sun [Sūrya] and the moon [Chandrama]. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka [earth], Antariksha-loka [space], and Swargaloka [heaven]. You are Om. (That is to say, You are all this).

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of Ganesha's body in iconography and the shape of Aum in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.

 

FIRST CHAKRA

According to Kundalini yoga, Ganesha resides in the first chakra, called Muladhara (mūlādhāra). Mula means "original, main"; adhara means "base, foundation". The muladhara chakra is the principle on which the manifestation or outward expansion of primordial Divine Force rests. This association is also attested to in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. Courtright translates this passage as follows: "[O Ganesha,] You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra]." Thus, Ganesha has a permanent abode in every being at the Muladhara. Ganesha holds, supports and guides all other chakras, thereby "governing the forces that propel the wheel of life".

 

FAMILY AND CONSORTS

Though Ganesha is popularly held to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths give different versions about his birth. In some he was created by Parvati, in another he was created by Shiva and Parvati, in another he appeared mysteriously and was discovered by Shiva and Parvati or he was born from the elephant headed goddess Malini after she drank Parvati's bath water that had been thrown in the river.

 

The family includes his brother the war god Kartikeya, who is also called Subramanya, Skanda, Murugan and other names. Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In northern India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder, while in the south, Ganesha is considered the first born. In northern India, Skanda was an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when worship of him declined significantly in northern India. As Skanda fell, Ganesha rose. Several stories tell of sibling rivalry between the brothers and may reflect sectarian tensions.

 

Ganesha's marital status, the subject of considerable scholarly review, varies widely in mythological stories. One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as an unmarried brahmacari. This view is common in southern India and parts of northern India. Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified as goddesses, said to be Ganesha's wives. He also may be shown with a single consort or a nameless servant (Sanskrit: daşi). Another pattern connects Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati or Śarda (particularly in Maharashtra). He is also associated with the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi. Another pattern, mainly prevalent in the Bengal region, links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

 

The Shiva Purana says that Ganesha had begotten two sons: Kşema (prosperity) and Lābha (profit). In northern Indian variants of this story, the sons are often said to be Śubha (auspiciouness) and Lābha. The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. This story has no Puranic basis, but Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.

 

WOSHIP AND FESTIVALS

Ganesha is worshipped on many religious and secular occasions; especially at the beginning of ventures such as buying a vehicle or starting a business. K.N. Somayaji says, "there can hardly be a [Hindu] home [in India] which does not house an idol of Ganapati. [..] Ganapati, being the most popular deity in India, is worshipped by almost all castes and in all parts of the country". Devotees believe that if Ganesha is propitiated, he grants success, prosperity and protection against adversity.

 

Ganesha is a non-sectarian deity, and Hindus of all denominations invoke him at the beginning of prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies. Dancers and musicians, particularly in southern India, begin performances of arts such as the Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to Ganesha. Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah (Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha) are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts).

 

Devotees offer Ganesha sweets such as modaka and small sweet balls (laddus). He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra. Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with red sandalwood paste (raktacandana) or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and other materials are also used in his worship.

 

Festivals associated with Ganesh are Ganesh Chaturthi or Vināyaka chaturthī in the śuklapakṣa (the fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of bhādrapada (August/September) and the Gaṇeśa jayanti (Gaṇeśa's birthday) celebrated on the cathurthī of the śuklapakṣa (fourth day of the waxing moon) in the month of māgha (January/February)."

 

GANESH CHATURTI

An annual festival honours Ganesha for ten days, starting on Ganesha Chaturthi, which typically falls in late August or early September. The festival begins with people bringing in clay idols of Ganesha, symbolising Ganesha's visit. The festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi, when idols (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed in the most convenient body of water. Some families have a tradition of immersion on the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, or 7th day. In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak transformed this annual Ganesha festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropriate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra. Because of Ganesha's wide appeal as "the god for Everyman", Tilak chose him as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule. Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavilions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day. Today, Hindus across India celebrate the Ganapati festival with great fervour, though it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra. The festival also assumes huge proportions in Mumbai, Pune, and in the surrounding belt of Ashtavinayaka temples.

 

TEMPLES

In Hindu temples, Ganesha is depicted in various ways: as an acolyte or subordinate deity (pãrśva-devatã); as a deity related to the principal deity (parivāra-devatã); or as the principal deity of the temple (pradhāna), treated similarly as the highest gods of the Hindu pantheon. As the god of transitions, he is placed at the doorway of many Hindu temples to keep out the unworthy, which is analogous to his role as Parvati’s doorkeeper. In addition, several shrines are dedicated to Ganesha himself, of which the Ashtavinayak (lit. "eight Ganesha (shrines)") in Maharashtra are particularly well known. Located within a 100-kilometer radius of the city of Pune, each of these eight shrines celebrates a particular form of Ganapati, complete with its own lore and legend. The eight shrines are: Morgaon, Siddhatek, Pali, Mahad, Theur, Lenyadri, Ozar and Ranjangaon.

 

There are many other important Ganesha temples at the following locations: Wai in Maharashtra; Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh; Jodhpur, Nagaur and Raipur (Pali) in Rajasthan; Baidyanath in Bihar; Baroda, Dholaka, and Valsad in Gujarat and Dhundiraj Temple in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Prominent Ganesha temples in southern India include the following: Kanipakam in Chittoor; the Jambukeśvara Temple at Tiruchirapalli; at Rameshvaram and Suchindram in Tamil Nadu; at Malliyur, Kottarakara, Pazhavangadi, Kasargod in Kerala, Hampi, and Idagunji in Karnataka; and Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

 

T. A. Gopinatha notes, "Every village however small has its own image of Vighneśvara (Vigneshvara) with or without a temple to house it in. At entrances of villages and forts, below pīpaḹa (Sacred fig) trees [...], in a niche [...] in temples of Viṣṇu (Vishnu) as well as Śiva (Shiva) and also in separate shrines specially constructed in Śiva temples [...]; the figure of Vighneśvara is invariably seen." Ganesha temples have also been built outside of India, including southeast Asia, Nepal (including the four Vinayaka shrines in the Kathmandu valley), and in several western countries.

 

RISE TO PROMINENCE

 

FIRST APEARANCE

Ganesha appeared in his classic form as a clearly recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes in the early 4th to 5th centuries. Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known iconic image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period. His independent cult appeared by about the 10th century. Narain summarizes the controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

What is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence of the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.

 

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In the post 600 BC period there is evidence of people and places named after the animal. The motif appears on coins and sculptures.

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India but concludes that, "although by the second century CE the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut."

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vinayakas (Vināyakas). In Hindu mythology, the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties but who were easily propitiated. The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras. Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha, "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th–4th century BCE) who cause various types of evil and suffering". Depictions of elephant-headed human figures, which some identify with Ganesha, appear in Indian art and coinage as early as the 2nd century. According to Ellawala, the elephant-headed Ganesha as lord of the Ganas was known to the people of Sri Lanka in the early pre-Christian era.

 

A metal plate depiction of Ganesha had been discovered in 1993, in Iran, it dated back to 1,200 BCE. Another one was discovered much before, in Lorestan Province of Iran.

 

First Ganesha's terracotta images are from 1st century CE found in Ter, Pal, Verrapuram and Chandraketugarh. These figures are small, with elephant head, two arms, and chubby physique. The earliest Ganesha icons in stone were carved in Mathura during Kushan times (2nd-3rd centuries CE).

 

VEDIC AND EPIC LITERATURE

The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda, but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, according to commentators. While this verse doubtless refers to Brahmanaspati, it was later adopted for worship of Ganesha and is still used today. In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati—who is the deity of the hymn—and Bṛhaspati only". Equally clearly, the second passage (RV 10.112.9) refers to Indra, who is given the epithet 'gaṇapati', translated "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts)." However, Rocher notes that the more recent Ganapatya literature often quotes the Rigvedic verses to give Vedic respectability to Ganesha .

 

Two verses in texts belonging to Black Yajurveda, Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā (2.9.1) and Taittirīya Āraṇyaka (10.1), appeal to a deity as "the tusked one" (Dantiḥ), "elephant-faced" (Hastimukha), and "with a curved trunk" (Vakratuņḍa). These names are suggestive of Ganesha, and the 14th century commentator Sayana explicitly establishes this identification. The description of Dantin, possessing a twisted trunk (vakratuṇḍa) and holding a corn-sheaf, a sugar cane, and a club, is so characteristic of the Puranic Ganapati that Heras says "we cannot resist to accept his full identification with this Vedic Dantin". However, Krishan considers these hymns to be post-Vedic additions. Thapan reports that these passages are "generally considered to have been interpolated". Dhavalikar says, "the references to the elephant-headed deity in the Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā have been proven to be very late interpolations, and thus are not very helpful for determining the early formation of the deity".

 

Ganesha does not appear in Indian epic literature that is dated to the Vedic period. A late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata says that the sage Vyasa (Vyāsa) asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed but only on condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, that is, without pausing. The sage agreed, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages so Ganesha would have to ask for clarifications. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata, in which the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote in an appendix. The story of Ganesha acting as the scribe occurs in 37 of the 59 manuscripts consulted during preparation of the critical edition.[174] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation. Richard L. Brown dates the story to the 8th century, and Moriz Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900, but it was not added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature in South Indian manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend. The term vināyaka is found in some recensions of the Śāntiparva and Anuśāsanaparva that are regarded as interpolations. A reference to Vighnakartṛīṇām ("Creator of Obstacles") in Vanaparva is also believed to be an interpolation and does not appear in the critical edition.

 

PURANIC PERIOD

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, c. 600–1300. Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he acquired an elephant's head are in the later Puranas, which were composed from c. 600 onwards. He elaborates on the matter to say that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas, such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature, Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century, when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The 9th-century philosopher Adi Shankara popularized the "worship of the five forms" (Panchayatana puja) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smarta tradition. This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, and Surya. Adi Shankara instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity.

 

SCRIPTURES

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some Brahmins (brāhmaṇas) chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition, as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana - and their dating relative to one another - has sparked academic debate. Both works were developed over time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews comments about dating and provides her own judgement. "It seems likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana appeared around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries", she says, "but was later interpolated." Lawrence W. Preston considers the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana to be between 1100 and 1400, which coincides with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by the text.

 

R.C. Hazra suggests that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana, which he dates between 1100 and 1400. However, Phyllis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha. She bases her reasoning on the fact that, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas (the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala Puranas) which deal at length with Ganesha. While the kernel of the text must be old, it was interpolated until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions. Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the 16th or 17th centuries.

 

BEYOND INDIA AND HINDUISM

Commercial and cultural contacts extended India's influence in western and southeast Asia. Ganesha is one of a number of Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures. From approximately the 10th century onwards, new networks of exchange developed including the formation of trade guilds and a resurgence of money circulation. During this time, Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders. The earliest inscription invoking Ganesha before any other deity is associated with the merchant community.

 

Hindus migrated to Maritime Southeast Asia and took their culture, including Ganesha, with them. Statues of Ganesha are found throughout the region, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences. The spread of Hindu culture to southeast Asia established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side by side, and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region. In Thailand, Cambodia, and among the Hindu classes of the Chams in Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles. Today in Buddhist Thailand, Ganesha is regarded as a remover of obstacles, the god of success.

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afghanistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. Examples of sculptures from the 5th to the 7th centuries have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was then in vogue in the region.

 

Ganesha appears in Mahayana Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also as a Hindu demon form with the same name. His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period. As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing. This form, called Nṛtta Ganapati, was popular in northern India, later adopted in Nepal, and then in Tibet. In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha, known as Heramba, is popular; he has five heads and rides a lion. Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him. A Tibetan rendering of Ganapati is tshogs bdag. In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākāla, (Shiva) a popular Tibetan deity. Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, and sometimes dancing. Ganesha appears in China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In northern China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated to 531. In Japan, where Ganesha is known as Kangiten, the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806.

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the worship of Ganesha. However, Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera. Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up Ganesha worship as a result of commercial connections. The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century. A 15th-century Jain text lists procedures for the installation of Ganapati images. Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 

WIKIPEDIA

 

… and free association. Here are my notes and ruminations from Scott Page’s talk at the SFI Overview on Complex Adaptive Systems.

 

“Perspective is a way to encode the world. There is a perspective from which any problem is easy.”

 

“Bee hives must stay at 96 degrees for bees to reach maturity. Bees can cool with their wings or huddle together for warmth. Genetically homogenous bees all move together, and the temperature fluctuates widely. Genetically diverse bees keep the hive at a constant temperature.”

 

Page’s conclusion that diversity is as important as ability seems pretty profound.

 

His argument for diversity in complex adaptive systems seems to be to be the underpinning of that popular book by Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds.

 

I’d posit that diverse group performance comes not from convergence to the mean on a single parameter scale, but the factoring of diverse and orthogonal perspectives. Diversity brings more variables into the multivariate regression of teams.

 

According to Scott Page, “People in diverse groups are less happy. Their views are challenged, and they feel like the outcomes were manipulated. Based on their experiences, they will self-report that it was not better than when they were on a homogenous team.”

 

As you increase diversity, complexity goes up, but then it drops and you get the central limit theorem. There is a sweet spot with just the right interplay between agents. Also, there is not one dimension that perspectives lie along. Diversity captures orthogonal perspectives and more adjacencies. The better the perspective, the less rugged the landscape (in terms of finding the global optimum and not getting trapped in local optima). Consultants can hop across local peaks without being any smarter or more experienced in their client’s business. The goal is not regression to the mean.

 

Thinking about the wisdom of crowds as an emergence, this is the question I have been wrestling with:

 

Does the minimal threshold complexity for interesting emergent phenomena necessitate inscrutability of results by members of the system?

 

For example, if a group of diverse people routinely beats the experts, where does the learning occur? It seems to be at the system level, and not the individual level. The decision may make no sense to the individual members, but the decision making process does. The “wisdom” of the process could be taught to others, but not the outcomes.

 

This generalization about emergence seems to hold for evolution, brains & neural networks, hives, and cultural memetic drift (more on this). In interesting systems, the emergent phenomena are at a different layer of abstraction, and may only be recognized by “in-process” or nodal members by pattern or proxy.

Holywood Road, Hong Kong Island

The Greatest

Mumbaikar of All..

Huge and Tall

Hears you Cry

Hears Your Call

Saves you each Time

before You Fall

whatever your religiosity

he removes obstacles

he sees there are no pitfalls

no terrorists can breach

our city's walls

Mutual Coexistence

Be Proud Indians

on our Souls he scrawls

our greatest enemy

our bigotry

our narrow mindedness

our hate for each other

that hits the nation

first of all

before being

a hindu muslim christian

be an Indian

says it all

miljul ke rehne

main hi bhaliee hai

our mantra

of peace

the greatest cure all

dont sell your country

for american dollars

or saudi riyal

  

from wikipedia

 

Ganesha (Sanskrit: गणेश; Gaṇeśa; listen (help·info), also spelled Ganesa or Ganesh) is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in Hinduism[8]. Although he is known by many other attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify.[9] Several texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits, and explain his distinct iconography. Ganesha is worshipped as the lord of beginnings and as the lord of obstacles (Vighnesha),[10] patron of arts and sciences, and the god of intellect and wisdom.[11] He is honoured with affection at the start of any ritual or ceremony and invoked as the "Patron of Letters" at the beginning of any writing.[12]

 

Ganesha appears as a distinct deity in clearly-recognizable form beginning in the fourth to fifth centuries, during the Gupta Period. His popularity rose quickly, and he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism (a Hindu denomination) in the ninth century. During this period, a sect of devotees (called Ganapatya; Sanskrit: गाणपत्य; gāṇapatya) who identify Ganesha as the supreme deity was formed.[13] The principal scriptures dedicated to his worship are the Ganesha Purana, the Mudgala Purana, and the Ganapati Atharvashirsa.

 

Ganesha is one of the most-worshipped divinities in India.[14][15] Worship of Ganesha is considered complementary with the worship of other forms of the divine, and various Hindu sects worship him regardless of other affiliations.[16][17][18] Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India.

 

Ganesha has many other titles and epithets, including Ganapati and Vighneśvara. The Hindu title of respect Shri (Sanskrit: श्री; śrī, also spelled Sri or Shree) is often added before his name. One popular form of Ganesha worship is by chanting one of the Ganesha Sahasranamas, which literally means "a thousand names of Ganesha". Each name in the sahasranama conveys a different meaning and symbolises a different aspect of Ganesha. There are at least two different versions of the Ganesha Sahasranama. One of these is drawn from the Ganesha Purana, a Hindu scripture that venerates Ganesha.[24]

 

The name Ganesha is a Sanskrit compound, joining the words gana (Sanskrit: गण; gaṇa), meaning a group, multitude, or categorical system and isha (Sanskrit: ईश; īśa), meaning lord or master.[25][26] The word gaņa in association with Ganesha is often taken to refer to the gaņas, a troop of semi-divine beings that form part of the retinue of Shiva (also spelled "Śiva").[27] The term more generally means a category, class, community, association, or corporation.[28] Some commentators interpret the name "Lord of the Gaņas" to mean "Lord of created categories," such as the elements, etc.[29] The translation "Lord of Hosts" may convey a familiar sense to Western readers. Ganapati (Sanskrit: गणपति; gaṇapati) is a synonym for Ganesha, being a compound composed of gaṇa, meaning "group", and pati, meaning "ruler" or "lord").[30]

 

Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras.[31] This name is reflected in the naming of the eight famous Ganesha (aṣṭavināyaka) temples in Maharashtra.[32] The name Vignesha, meaning "Lord of Obstacles", refers to his primary function in Hindu mythology as being able to both create and remove obstacles (vighna).

 

One of the main names for Ganesha in the Tamil language is Pille or Pillaiyar, which means "Little Child".[33] A. K. Narain differentiates these terms by saying that pille means a "child" and pillaiyar a "noble child", and adds that the words pallu, pella, and pell in the Dravidian family of languages signify "tooth or tusk of an elephant" but more generally "elephant".[34] In discussing the name Pillaiyar, Anita Raina Thapan notes that since the Pali word pillaka has the significance of "a young elephant" it is possible that pille originally meant "the young of the elephant".[35]

 

Ganesha is a popular figure in Indian art.[36] Unlike some deities, representations of Ganesha show wide variation with distinct patterns changing over time.[37][38][39] He may be portrayed standing, dancing, taking heroic action against demons, playing with his family as a boy, sitting down, or engaging in a remarkable range of contemporary situations.

 

Ganesha images were prevalent in many parts of India by the sixth century.[40] The figure shown to the right is typical of Ganesha statuary from 900-1200, after Ganesha had been well-established as an independent deity with his own cult. This example features some of Ganesha's common iconographic elements. A virtually identical statue has been dated between 973-1200 by Martin-Dubost[41] and another similar statue is dated circa twelfth century by Pal.[42] He has the head of an elephant and a big belly. This statue has four arms, which is common in depictions of Ganesha . He holds his own broken tusk in his lower-right hand and holds some form of delicacy, which he samples with his trunk in his lower-left hand. The motif of Ganesha turning his trunk sharply to his left to taste a sweet which he holds in his lower-left hand is a particularly archaic feature.[43] A more primitive statue in one of the Ellora Caves with this general form has been dated to the 7th century.[44] Details of the other hands are difficult to make out on the statue shown; in this standard configuration, Ganesha typically holds either an axe or a goad in one upper arm and a noose in the other upper arm as symbols of his ability to cut through obstacles or to create them as needed.

 

The influence of this old constellation of iconographic elements can still be seen in contemporary representations of Ganesha. In one modern form, the only variation from these old elements is that the lower-right hand does not hold the broken tusk but rather is turned toward the viewer in the gesture of protection or "no fear" (abhaya mudra).[45][46] The same combination of four arms and attributes occurs in statues of Ganesha dancing,[47] which is a very popular theme.[48]

Ganesha has been represented with the head of an elephant since the early stages of his appearance in Indian art.[50] Puranic myths provide many explanations for how he got this form.[51] One of his popular forms (called Heramba-Ganapati) has five elephant heads, and other less-common variations in the number of heads are known.[52]

 

While some texts say that Ganesha was born with an elephant head, in most stories he acquires the head later, with several accounts given.[53] The most common motif in these stories is that Ganesha was born with a human head and body and that Shiva beheaded him when Ganesha came between Shiva and Parvati. Shiva then replaced Ganesha's original head with that of an elephant.[54] Details of the battle and where the replacement head came from vary according to different sources.[55] In another story, when Ganesha was born his mother Parvati showed off her new baby to the other gods. Unfortunately, the god Shani (Saturn) – who is said to have the "evil eye" – looked at him, causing the baby's head to be burned to ashes. The god Vishnu came to the rescue and replaced the missing head with that of an elephant.[56] Another story tells that Ganesha is created directly by Shiva's laughter. Shiva became concerned that Ganesha was too alluring, so he cursed Ganesha to have the head of an elephant and a protruding belly.[57]

 

The earliest name referring to Ganesha is Ekadanta ("One Tusk"), noting his single tusk; the other is broken off. [58] Some of the earliest images of Ganesha show him holding his broken tusk.[59] The importance of this distinctive feature is reflected in the Mudgala Purana, which states that the name of Ganesha's second incarnation is Ekadanta.[60]

 

Ganesha's protruding belly appears as a distinctive attribute in his earliest statuary, which dates to the Gupta period (4th to 6th centuries).[61] This feature is so important that according to the Mudgala Purana two different incarnations of Ganesha use names based on it, Lambodara ("Pot Belly", or literally "Hanging Belly") and Mahodara ("Great Belly").[62] Both names are Sanskrit compounds describing his belly (Sanskrit: udara).[63] The Brahmanda Purana says that he has the name Lambodara because all the universes (i.e., cosmic eggs; Sanskrit brahmāṇḍas) of the past, present, and future are present in Ganesha.[64][65]

 

The number of Ganesha's arms varies; his best-known forms have between two and sixteen arms.[66] Many depictions of Ganesha feature four arms, which is mentioned in Puranic sources and codified as a standard form in some iconographic texts.[67] His earliest images had two arms.[68][69] Forms with fourteen and twenty arms appeared in Central India during the 9th and 10th century.[70]

 

The serpent is a common element in Ganesha iconography, where it appears in many forms.[71][72] According to the Ganesha Purana, Ganesha wrapped the serpent Vāsuki around his neck.[73][74] Other common depictions of snakes include use as a sacred thread (Sanskrit: yajñyopavīta),[75][76] wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, and as a throne. Upon Ganesha's forehead there may be either a third eye or a sectarian mark (Sanskrit: tilaka) of Shiva showing three horizontal lines.[77][78] The Ganesha Purana prescribes both a tilaka mark as well as a crescent moon for the forehead.[79][80][81] A distinct form called Bhālacandra ("Moon on the Forehead") includes that iconographic element.[82][83]

 

The colors most often associated with Ganesha are red [84] and yellow, but specific other colors are prescribed in certain forms.[85] Many examples of color associations with specific meditation forms are prescribed in the Sritattvanidhi, a treatise on iconography that includes a section on variant forms of Ganesha. For example, white is associated with his representations as Heramba-Ganapati and Rina-Mochana-Ganapati.("Ganapati Who Releases From Bondage").[86] Ekadanta-Ganapati is visualized as blue during meditation on that form.[

The earliest Ganesha images are without a Vahana (mount).[88] Of the eight incarnations of Ganesha described in the Mudgala Purana, Ganesha has a mouse in five of them, but uses a lion in his incarnation as Vakratunda, a peacock in his incarnation of Vikata, and Shesha, the divine serpent, in his incarnation as Vighnaraja.[89] Of the four incarnations of Ganesha listed in the Ganesha Purana, Mohotkata has a lion, Mayūreśvara has a peacock, Dhumraketu has a horse, and Gajanana has a rat.[90][91] Jain depictions of Ganesha show his vahana variously as a mouse,[92] an elephant,[93] a tortoise, a ram, or a peacock.[94]

 

Mouse as vahana

 

Ganesha riding on his mouse. A sculpture at the Vaidyeshwara temple in Talakkadu, Karnataka, India. Note the red flowers offered by the devotees.Ganesha is often shown riding on, or attended by a mouse.[95][96] Martin-Dubost says that in central and western India the rat began to appear as the principal vehicle in sculptures of Gaṇeśa in the 7th century A.D., where the rat was always placed close to his feet.[97] The mouse as a mount first appears in written sources in the Matsya Purana, and later in the Brahmananda Purana and Ganesha Purana where Ganesha uses it as his vehicle only in his last incarnation.[98] The Ganapati Atharvashirsa includes a meditation verse on Ganesha that describes the mouse appearing on his flag.[99] The names Mūṣakavāhana ("Mouse-mount") and Ākhuketana ("Rat-banner") appear in the Ganesha Sahasranama.[100]

 

Devotee literature provides a variety of interpretations regarding what the mouse means. Michael Wilcockson says it symbolizes those who wish to overcome desires and be less selfish.[101] Martin-Dubost thinks it is a symbol of the fact that Ganesha, like the rat, penetrates even the most secret places.[102] Krishan gives a completely different interpretation, noting that the rat is a destructive creature and a menace to crops. The Sanskrit word mūṣaka (mouse) is derived from the root mūṣ which means "stealing, robbing". It was essential to subdue the rat as a destructive pest, a type of vighna (impediment) that needed to be overcome. In this theory, showing Ganesha as master of the rat proclaims his function as Vigneshvara and gives evidence of his possible role as a folk grāmata-devatā (village deity) who later rose to greater prominence.[103]

Buddhi

Ganesha is considered to be the Lord of Intelligence.[108] In Sanskrit, the word buddhi is a feminine noun that is variously translated as intelligence, wisdom, or intellect.[109] The concept of buddhi is closely associated with the personality of Ganesha, especially in the Puranic period, where many stories showcase his cleverness and love of intelligence. One of Ganesha's names in the Ganesha Purana and the Ganesha Sahasranama is Buddhipriya.[110] This name also appears in a special list of twenty-one names that Gaṇeśa says are of special importance at the end of the Ganesha Sahasranama.[111] The word priya can mean "fond of", but in a marital context, it can mean "lover" or "husband". Buddhipriya probably refers to Ganesha's well-known association with intelligence.

 

This association with wisdom also appears in the name Buddha, which appears as a name of Ganesha in the second verse of the Ganesha Purana version of the Ganesha Sahasranama.[112] The positioning of this name at the beginning of the Ganesha Sahasranama reveals the name's importance. Bhaskararaya's commentary on the Ganesha Sahasranama says that this name means that the Buddha was an avatar of Ganesha.[113] This interpretation is not widely known even among Ganapatya. Buddha is not mentioned in the lists of Ganesha's incarnations given in the main sections of the Ganesha Purana and Mudgala Purana. Bhaskararaya also provides a more general interpretation of this name as simply meaning that Ganesha's very form is "eternal elightenment" (nityabuddaḥ), so he is named Buddha.

  

[edit] Aum

 

Ganesha (Devanagari) Aum jewelGanesha is identified with the Hindu mantra Aum (ॐ, also called Om, Omkara, oṃkāra, or Aumkara). The term oṃkārasvarūpa ("Aum is his form") in connection with Ganesha refers to this belief that he is the personification of the primal sound.[114] This association is attested in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. The relevant passage is translated by Paul Courtright as follows:

 

You are Brahmā, Vişņu, and Rudra [Śiva]. You are Agni, Vāyu, and Sūrya. You are Candrama. You are earth, space, and heaven. You are the manifestation of the mantra "Oṃ".[115]

 

A variant version of this passage is translated by Chinmayananda as follows:

 

(O Lord Ganapati!) You are (the Trinity) Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesa. You are Indra. You are fire and air. You are the sun and the moon. You are Brahman. You are (the three worlds) Bhuloka, Antariksha-loka, and Swargaloka. You are Om. (that is to say, You are all this).[116]

 

Some devotees see similarities between the shape of his body and the shape of Om in the Devanāgarī and Tamil scripts.[117]

  

[edit] First chakra

Ganesha is associated with the first or "root" chakra (mūlādhāra). This association is attested in the Ganapati Atharvashirsa. As translated by Courtright this passage reads:

 

You continually dwell in the sacral plexus at the base of the spine [mūlādhāra cakra].[118]

 

A variant version of this passage is translated by Chinmayananda:

 

You have a permanent abode (in every being) at the place called "Muladhara".[119]

  

[edit] Family and consorts

 

Shiva and Pārvatī giving a bath to Gaṇeśa. Kangra miniature, 18th century. Allahbad Museum, New Delhi.[120]For more details on this topic, see Consorts of Ganesha.

While Ganesha is popularly considered to be the son of Shiva and Parvati, the Puranic myths relate several different versions of his birth.[121][122] These include versions in which he is created by Shiva,[123] by Parvati,[124] by Shiva and Parvati,[125] or in a mysterious manner that is discovered by Shiva and Parvati.[126]

 

The family includes his brother Skanda, who is also called Karttikeya, Murugan, and other names.[127][128] Regional differences dictate the order of their births. In North India, Skanda is generally said to be the elder brother while in the South, Ganesha is considered the first born.[129] Prior to the emergence of Ganesha, Skanda had a long and glorious history as an important martial deity from about 500 BCE to about 600 CE, when his worship declined significantly in North India. The period of this decline is concurrent with the rise of Ganesha. Several stories relate episodes of sibling rivalry between Ganesha and Skanda[130] and may reflect historical tensions between the respective sects.[131]

 

Ganesha's marital status varies widely in mythological stories and the issue has been the subject of considerable scholarly review.[132] One pattern of myths identifies Ganesha as a brahmacharin (brahmacārin; celibate).[133] Another pattern associates him with the concepts of Buddhi (intellect), Siddhi (spiritual power), and Riddhi (prosperity); these qualities are sometimes personified by goddesses who are considered to be Ganesha's wives. A third pattern couples Ganesha with the goddess of culture and the arts, Sarasvati, and the goddess of luck and prosperity, Lakshmi, symbolically indicating that these qualities always accompany one other. A fourth pattern mainly prevalent in the Bengal region links Ganesha with the banana tree, Kala Bo.

  

[edit] Buddhi, Siddhi, and Riddhi

 

Shri Mayureshwar, MorgaonThe Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana contain descriptions of Ganesha flanked by Buddhi and Siddhi.[134] In Chapter I.18.24-39 of the Ganesha Purana, Brahmā performs worship in honour of Ganesha. During the puja, Ganesha himself causes Buddhi and Siddhi to appear so that Brahmā can offer them back to Ganesha. Ganesha accepts them as offerings.[135] In a variant, the two are born from Brahmā's mind and are given by Brahmā to Ganesha.[135] Buddhi and Siddhi are best identified as his consorts in the Shiva Purana, where Ganesha cleverly wins the two desirable daugters of Prajāpati over Skanda.[136] The Shiva Purana version says that Ganesha had two sons: Kshema (Kşema, prosperity) and Labha (profit). The 1975 Hindi film Jai Santoshi Maa shows Ganesha married to Riddhi and Siddhi and having a daughter named Santoshi Ma, the goddess of satisfaction. However, this story has no Puranic basis. Anita Raina Thapan and Lawrence Cohen cite Santoshi Ma's cult as evidence of Ganesha's continuing evolution as a popular deity.[137][138]

 

Representations of Ganesha's consorts can be found aside from Puranic texts. In the Ganesha Temple at Morgaon (the central shrine for the regional aṣṭavināyaka complex), Buddhi and Siddhi stand to the right and left sides of the Ganesha image.[139] In northern India, the two female figures are said to be Siddhi and Riddhi; Riddhi substitutes for Buddhi with no Puranic basis.[140] The Ajitāgama describes a Tantric form of Ganesha called Haridra Ganapati as turmeric-colored and flanked by two unnamed wives distinct from shaktis.[141] The word "wives" (Sanskrit: दारा; dārā) is specifically used (Sanskrit: दारायुगलम्; dārāyugalam).[142]

  

[edit] Interpretations of relationships

 

Ganesha with the Ashta (meaning eight) Siddhi. The Ashtasiddhi are associated with Ganesha. Painted by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906).In discussing the Shiva Purana version, Courtright comments that while Ganesha is sometimes depicted as sitting between these two feminine deities, "these women are more like feminine emanations of his androgynous nature, Shaktis rather than spouses having their own characters and spouses."[143] Ludo Rocher says that "descriptions of Gaṇeśa as siddhi-buddhi-samanvita 'accompanied by, followed by siddhi and buddhi.' often seem to mean no more than that, when Gaṇeśa is present, siddhi 'success' and buddhi 'wisdom' are not far behind. Such may well have been the original conception, of which the marriage was a later development."[144] In verse 49a of the Ganesha Purana version of the Ganesha Sahasranama, one of Ganesha's names is Ŗddhisiddhipravardhana ("Enhancer of material and spiritual success"). The Matsya Purana identifies Gaṇesha as the "owner" of Riddhi (prosperity) and Buddhi (wisdom).[145] In discussing the northern Indian sources, Cohen remarks:

 

They are depersonalized figures, interchangeable, and given their frequent depiction fanning Gaṇeśa are often referred to as dasīs — servants. Their names represent the benefits accrued by the worshipper of Gaṇeśa, and thus Gaṇeśa is said to be the owner of Ṛddhi and Siddhi; he similarly functions as the father of Śubha (auspiciousness) and Lābha (profit), a pair similar to the Śiva Purāṇa's Kṣema (prosperity) and Lābha. Though in Varanasi the paired figures were usually called Ṛddhi and Siddhi, Gaṇeśa's relationship to them was often vague. He was their mālik, their owner; they were more often dasīs than patnīs (wives).[146]

 

His relationship with the Ashtasiddhi — the eight spiritual attaintments obtained by the practice of yoga — is also of this depersonalized type. In later iconography, these eight marvellous powers are represented by a group of young women who surround Ganesha.[147] Raja Ravi Varma's painting (shown in this section) illustrates a recent example of this iconographic form. The painting includes fans, which establish the feminine figures as attendants.

  

[edit] Motif of shaktis

 

Ganesha in his form as Mahāganapati with a shakti. From the Sritattvanidhi (19th century).A distinct type of iconographic image of Ganesha shows him with a single human-looking shakti (śakti).[148] According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, the oldest known depiction of Ganesha with a shakti of this type dates from the sixth century.[149] The consort lacks a distinctive personality or iconographic repertoire. According to Cohen and Alice Getty, the appearance of this shakti motif parallels the emergence of tantric branches of the Ganapatya cult. Six distinct forms of "Shakti Ganapati" can be linked to the Ganapatyas.[150] Of the thirty-two standard meditation forms for Ganesha that appear in the Sritattvanidhi (Śrītattvanidhi), several include a shakti.[151][152] A common form of this motif shows Ganesha seated with the shakti upon his left hip, holding a bowl of flat cakes or round sweets, with him turning his trunk to his left to touch the tasty food. In some tantric forms of this image, the gesture is modified to take on erotic overtones.[153] Some tantric variants of this form are described in the Śāradātilaka Tantram.[154]

 

Prithvi Kumar Agrawala has traced at least six different lists of fifty or more aspects or forms of Ganesha each with their specific female consorts or shaktis.[155][156] In these lists, goddess names such as Hrī, Śrī, and Puṣṭī are found. However, Buddhi, Siddhi, and Riddhi do not appear on any of these lists, which also do not provide any details about the personalities or distinguishing iconographic forms for these shaktis. Agrawala concludes that all of the lists were derived from one original set of names. The earliest of the lists appears in the Nārada Purāṇa (I.66.124-38), and a similar list with minor variations appears in the Ucchiṣṭagaṇapati Upāsanā. These lists are of two types. In the first type the names of various forms of Ganesha are given with a clear-cut pairing of a named shakti for that form. The second type, as found in the Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa (II.IV.44.63-76) and the commentary of Rāghavabhaṭṭa on the Śāradātilaka (I.115), gives fifty or more names of Ganesha collectively in one group, with the names of the shaktis provided collectively in a second group. The second type of list poses problems in separating and properly connecting the names into pairs due to ambiguities in the formation of Sanskrit compound words.

  

[edit] Worship and festivals

 

Celebrations of Ganesh by the Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil community in Paris, FranceWhether the reason has to do with a religious ceremony, a new vehicle, students taking exams, sessions of devotional chanting, or beginning a business, Ganesha is worshipped. Throughout India and the Hindu culture, Ganesha is the first icon placed into any new home or abode. Devotees widely believe that wherever there is Ganesha, there is success and prosperity. By calling on him people believe that he will come to their aid and grant them success in their endeavours.

 

The worship of Ganesha is considered complementary with the worship of other deities.[157] Hindus of all sects begin prayers, important undertakings, and religious ceremonies with an invocation to Ganesha. Ganesha is also adored by dancers and musicians, who begin their performances of arts such as Bharatnatyam dance with a prayer to him, particularly in South India.[158] Mantras such as Om Shri Gaṇeshāya Namah ("Om, salutation to the Illustrious Ganesha"), and others, are often used. One of the most famous mantras associated with Ganesha is Om Gaṃ Ganapataye Namah (literally, "Om, Gaṃ, Salutation to the Lord of Hosts").

 

Devotees offer Ganesha various sweets, such as modaka, small sweet balls (laddus) and others.[159]. He is often shown carrying a bowl of sweets, called a modakapātra, which is one of his iconographic elements.[160] Because of his identification with the color red, he is often worshipped with things such as red sandalwood paste (raktacandana),[161] or red flowers. Dūrvā grass (Cynodon dactylon) and various other materials are used in his worship.[162]

  

[edit] Ganesh Chaturthi

 

A large Ganesha statue at a Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, 2004There is an important festival honouring Ganesha that is celebrated for ten days starting from Ganesh Chaturthi.[163] This festival culminates on the day of Ananta Chaturdashi when images (murtis) of Ganesha are immersed into the most convenient body of water.

 

The Ganapati festival is celebrated by Hindus with great devotional fervour. While it is most popular in the state of Maharashtra,[164] it is performed all over India.[165] In Mumbai, the festival assumes huge proportions. On the last day of the festival, millions of people of all ages descend onto the streets leading up to the sea, dancing and singing, to the rhythmic accompaniment of drums and cymbals.

 

In 1893, Lokmanya Tilak reshaped the annual Ganesh festival from private family celebrations into a grand public event. [166] He did so "to bridge the gap between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins and find an appropiate context in which to build a new grassroots unity between them" in his nationalistic strivings against the British in Maharashtra.[167][168] Thus, Tilak chose Ganesha as a rallying point for Indian protest against British rule because of his wide appeal as "the god for Everyman".[169][170] Tilak was the first to install large public images of Ganesha in pavillions, and he established the practice of submerging all the public images on the tenth day.[171]

  

[edit] Rise to prominence

 

[edit] First appearance

Ganesha appears in his classic form as a clearly-recognizable deity with well-defined iconographic attributes from the early fourth to fifth centuries.[172] Shanti Lal Nagar says that the earliest known cult image of Ganesha is in the niche of the Shiva temple at Bhumra, which has been dated to the Gupta period.[173]. By about the tenth century his independent cult had come into existence.[174] Narain sums up controversy between devotees and academics regarding the development of Ganesha as follows:

 

[W]hat is inscrutable is the somewhat dramatic appearance of Gaņeśa on the historical scene. His antecedents are not clear. His wide acceptance and popularity, which transcend sectarian and territorial limits, are indeed amazing. On the one hand there is the pious belief of the orthodox devotees in Gaņeśa's Vedic origins and in the Purāṇic explanations contained in the confusing, but nonetheless interesting, mythology. On the other hand there are doubts about the existence of the idea and the icon of this deity" before the fourth to fifth century A.D. ... [I]n my opinion, indeed there is no convincing evidence or the existence of this divinity prior to the fifth century.[175]

  

[edit] Possible influences

Courtright reviews various speculative theories about the early history of Ganesha, including supposed tribal traditions and animal cults, and dismisses all of them in this way:

 

In this search for a historical origin for Gaņeśa, some have suggested precise locations outside the Brāhmaṇic tradition.... These historical locations are intriguing to be sure, but the fact remains that they are all speculations, variations on the Dravidian hypothesis, which argues that anything not attested to in the Vedic and Indo-European sources must have come into Brāhmaṇic religion from the Dravidian or aboriginal populations of India as part of the process that produced Hinduism out of the interactions of the Aryan and non-Aryan populations. There is no independent evidence for an elephant cult or a totem; nor is there any archaeological data pointing to a tradition prior to what we can already see in place in the Purāṇic literature and the iconography of Gaņeśsa.[176]

 

Thapan's book on the development of Ganesha devotes a chapter to speculations about the role elephants had in early India, but concludes that:

 

Although by the second century AD the elephant-headed yakṣa form exists it cannot be presumed to represent Gaṇapati-Vināyaka. There is no evidence of a deity by this name having an elephant or elephant-headed form at this early stage. Gaṇapati-Vināyaka had yet to make his debut.[177]

 

One theory of the origin of Ganesha is that he gradually came to prominence in connection with the four Vināyakas.[178][179] In Hindu mythology the Vināyakas were a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties,[180] but who were easily propitiated.[181] The name Vināyaka is a common name for Ganesha both in the Purāṇas and in Buddhist Tantras.[182] Krishan is one of the academics who accepts this view, stating flatly of Ganesha that "He is a non-vedic god. His origin is to be traced to the four Vināyakas, evil spirits, of the Mānavagŗhyasūtra (7th-4th century B.C.) who cause various types of evil and suffering."[183]

  

[edit] Vedic and epic literature

 

5th C Ganesh by Shahi King Khingala, found at Gardez, Afghanistan now at Dargah Pir Rattan NathGanesha as we know him today does not appear in the Vedas. The title "Leader of the group" (Sanskrit: gaṇapati) occurs twice in the Rig Veda but in neither case does it refer to the modern Ganesha. The term appears in RV 2.23.1 as a title for Brahmanaspati, the teacher of the gods. H. H. Wilson translates the Sanskrit verse "gaṇānāṃ tvā gaṇapatiṃ havāmahe kaviṃ kavīnāmupamaśravastamam" (RV 2.23.1 [2222]) as "We invoke the Brahmaṇaspati, chief leader of the (heavenly) bands; a sage of sages".[184] While there is no doubt that this verse refers to Brahmanaspati, the verse was later adopted for worship of Ganesha even to this day.[185][186] In rejecting any claim that this passage is evidence of Ganesha in the Rig Veda, Ludo Rocher says that it "clearly refers to Bṛhaspati - who is the deity of the hymn - and Bṛhaspati only."[187] The second passage (RV 10.112.9) equally clearly refers to Indra.[188] Wilson translates the Sanskrit verse "ni ṣu sīda gaṇapate gaṇeṣu tvāmāhurvipratamaṃ kavīnām" as "Lord of the companies (of the Maruts), sit down among the companies (of the worshippers), they call you the most sage of sages".[189]

 

Ganesha does not appear in epic literature. There is a late interpolation to the epic poem Mahabharata, saying that the sage Vyāsa asked Ganesha to serve as his scribe to transcribe the poem as he dictated it to him. Ganesha agreed, but only on the condition that Vyasa recite the poem uninterrupted, without pausing. The sage agreed to this, but found that to get any rest he needed to recite very complex passages in order to get Ganesha to ask for clarifications. This is the single passage in which Ganesha appears in that epic. The story is not accepted as part of the original text by the editors of the critical edition of the Mahabharata,[190] where the twenty-line story is relegated to a footnote to an appendix.[191] Ganesha's association with mental agility and learning is one reason he is shown as scribe for Vyāsa's dictation of the Mahabharata in this interpolation to the text.[192] Richard L. Brown dates the story as 8th century, and Winternitz concludes that it was known as early as c. 900 but he maintains that it had not yet been added to the Mahabharata some 150 years later. Moriz Winternitz also notes that a distinctive feature of Southern manuscripts of the Mahabharata is their omission of this Ganesha legend.[193]

  

[edit] Puranic period

Stories about Ganesha often occur in the Puranic corpus. Brown notes while the Puranas "defy precise chronological ordering", the more detailed narratives of Ganesha's life are in the late texts, circa 600- 1300.[194] Yuvraj Krishan says that the Puranic myths about the birth of Ganesha and how he came to acquire an elephant's head are in the later Puranas composed from about 600 onwards, and that references to Ganesha in the earlier Puranas such as the Vayu and Brahmanda Puranas, are later interpolations made during the 7th to 10th centuries.[195]

 

In his survey of Ganesha's rise to prominence in Sanskrit literature Ludo Rocher notes that:

 

Above all, one cannot help being struck by the fact that the numerous stories surrounding Gaṇeśa concentrate on an unexpectedly limited number of incidents. These incidents are mainly three: his birth and parenthood, his elephant head, and his single tusk. Other incidents are touched on in the texts, but to a far lesser extent.[196]

 

Ganesha's rise to prominence was codified in the 9th century when he was formally included as one of the five primary deities of Smartism. The ninth-century philosopher Śaṅkarācārya popularized the "worship of the five forms" (pañcāyatana pūjā) system among orthodox Brahmins of the Smārta tradition.[197][198] This worship practice invokes the five deities Ganesha, Vishnu, Shiva, Devī, and Sūrya.[199][200] Śaṅkarācārya instituted the tradition primarily to unite the principal deities of these five major sects on an equal status. This formalized the role of Ganesha as a complementary deity. The monistic philosophy preached by Śaṅkarācārya made it possible to choose one of these as a preferred principal deity and at the same time worship the other four deities as different forms of the same all-pervading Brahman.

  

[edit] Ganesha Scriptures

 

Statue of Ganesha with a flowerFor more detail see: Ganesha Purana and Mudgala Purana

Once Ganesha was accepted as one of the five principal deities of Brahmanism, some brāhmaṇas chose to worship Ganesha as their principal deity. They developed the Ganapatya tradition as seen in the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana.[201]

 

The date of composition for the Ganesha Purana and the Mudgala Purana, and their dating relative to one another, has sparked academic debate. Both works developed over periods of time and contain age-layered strata. Anita Thapan reviews different views on dating and provides her own judgement. She states that it appears likely that the core of the Ganesha Purana came into existence around the 12th and 13th centuries but was subject to interpolations during the succeeding ages.[202] Lawrence W. Preston considers that the period 1100-1400 is the most reasonable date for the Ganesha Purana because that period agrees with the apparent age of the sacred sites mentioned by it.[203]

 

R. C. Hazra suggested that the Mudgala Purana is older than the Ganesha Purana which he dates between 1100 and 1400 A.D.[204] However Phillis Granoff finds problems with this relative dating and concludes that the Mudgala Purana was the last of the philosophical texts concerned with Ganesha because, among other internal evidence, the Mudgala Purana specifically mentions the Ganesha Purana as one of the four Puranas that deal at length with Ganesha (these are the Brahma, the Brahmanda, the Ganesha, and the Mudgala puranas).[205] The Mudgala Purana, like many other Puranas, contains multiple age strata. While the kernel of the text must be old it continued to receive interpolations until the 17th and 18th centuries as the worship of Ganapati became more important in certain regions.[206] Another highly regarded scripture, the Ganapati Atharvashirsa, was probably composed during the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries A.D.[207]

  

[edit] Beyond India and Hinduism

For more on this topic, see Ganesha outside Hinduism.

 

Tibetan depiction of Dancing Ganesha[208] This form is also known as Maharakta ("The Great Red One")[209]India had an impact on the regions of West and Southeast Asia as a result of commercial and cultural contacts. Ganesha is one of many Hindu deities who reached foreign lands as a result.[210] The worship of Ganesha by Hindus outside of India shows regional variation.

 

Ganesha was particularly worshipped by traders and merchants, who went out of India for commercial ventures.[211] The period from approximately the tenth century onwards was marked by the development of new networks of exchange, the formation of trade guilds, and a resurgence of money circulation. It was during this time that Ganesha became the principal deity associated with traders.[212] The earliest inscription where Ganesha is invoked before any other deity is by the merchant community.[213]

 

Hindus spread out to the Malay Archipelago and took their culture with them, including Ganesha.[214] Statues of Ganesa are found throughout the Malay Archipelago in great numbers, often beside Shiva sanctuaries. The forms of Ganesha found in Hindu art of Java, Bali, and Borneo show specific regional influences.[215] The gradual emigration of Hindus to Indochina established Ganesha in modified forms in Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand. In Indochina, Hinduism and Buddhism were practiced side-by-side and mutual influences can be seen in the iconography of Ganesha in the region.[216] In Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, Ganesha was mainly thought of as a remover of obstacles.[217] Even today, in Buddhist Thailand Ganesha is regarded as remover of obstacles and thus god of success.[218]

 

Before the arrival of Islam, Afganistan had close cultural ties with India, and the adoration of both Hindu and Buddhist deities was practiced. A few examples of sculptures from the period 5th-7th century have survived, suggesting that the worship of Ganesha was in vogue in the region at that time.[219][220]

 

Ganesha appears in Buddhism, not only in the form of the Buddhist god Vināyaka, but also portrayed as a Hindu demon form with the same name (Vināyaka).[221] His image appears in Buddhist sculptures during the late Gupta period.[222] As the Buddhist god Vināyaka, he is often shown dancing, a form called Nṛtta Ganapati that was popular in North India, later adopted in Nepal and then in Tibet.[223] In Nepal, the Hindu form of Ganesha known as Heramba is very popular, where he appears with five heads and rides on a lion.[224] Tibetan representations of Ganesha show ambivalent views of him.[225] In one Tibetan form, he is shown being trodden under foot by Mahākala, a popular Tibetan deity.[226][227] Other depictions show him as the Destroyer of Obstacles, sometimes dancing.[228] Ganesha appears in both China and Japan in forms that show distinct regional character. In North China, the earliest known stone statue of Ganesha carries an inscription dated 531 CE.[229] In Japan the Ganesha cult was first mentioned in 806 CE.[230]

 

The canonical literature of Jainism does not mention the cult of Ganesha.[231] However Ganesha is worshipped by most Jains, for whom he appears to have taken over certain functions of Kubera.[232] Jain connections with the trading community support the idea that Jainism took up the worship of Ganesha as a result of commercial connections.[233] The earliest known Jain Ganesha statue dates to about the 9th century.[234] A 15th century Jain text provides procedures for the installation of Ganapati images.[235] Images of Ganesha appear in the Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat.[236]

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha

  

Charley: “Not that you’re counting.”

 

Sun: *frowns, the expression incongruous on her usually cheerful face* “I miss him a lot. It hurts…” *places her hand over her heart, squeezing*

 

Candy: *slings her arm around Sun’s shoulders, careful not to get her sticky fingers tangled in her hair* “I know it does, baby. Try not to think about it too much. Here…*nudges the plate towards her* have another cupcake…or two.”

 

Sun: *furrowed brow dissolving, as her lips curl up, chirps* “Okay!”

 

Charley: *snorts into her coffee* “Wow…you got over that heartbreak real quick. Sea’s just been replaced by a baked good.”

 

Sun: “A really, really good baked good….*face suddenly solemn* He’d understand.”

 

Charley: “Since he’s dating you, I’m sure he would.”

 

Diego: *sidles into the room, eyeing the empty plate on the table* “Am I too late for the cupcakes?”

 

Charley: *looks down at her coffee mug, refusing to meet Diego’s eyes* “No, there are more in the fridge.”

 

Diego: *slowly walks over to the fridge, face inscrutable* “You eat dinner?”

 

Charley: “Yeah.”

 

Diego: “Something more than a PBJ?”

 

Charley: “No.”

 

Diego: *sighs, as he opens the fridge, bends down and rummages around inside*

 

Sun: *mouth agape, as she examines the fine posterior currently protruding from the fridge, mouths* “Who. Is. That!?”

 

Candy: *stuffs a cupcake in her mouth to muffle her chuckle, nearly snorting icing up her nose*

 

Charley: *rolls eyes* “Sun, this is Diego. He and Molly are both staying with me for a while.”

 

Sun: *cranes her neck, to get a better view* “Awe.Some.Balls. Hi, Diego!”

 

Diego: *extracts his head from the fridge, nodding at Sun* “Hey…*turns to Charley* are all your friends blonde?”

 

Charley: *still refusing to look at him* “Huh…now that you mention it.”

 

Diego: *straightens up, slams the fridge, plate of cupcakes in hand*

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Charley

Jeans: Clear lan

Top: Cangaway (etsy.com)

Sneakers: Sekiguchi Momoko – Dash! After School

Glasses: Sekiguchi Momoko Accessory

Sweater: It – NuFace – Style Mantra Eden

Necklace: Me

 

Doll is a Morning Dew Giselle transplanted to a Poppy body, re-rooted by the magnificent valmaxi(!!!)

 

Diego

Jeans: Clear lan

Shirt: IT – Fashion Royalty – Homme – In the Mix Takeo

Vest: IT – Fashion Royalty – Homme – Fast Track Victor James

Belt: Kimberlee of Hazel Street Designs

Shoes: IT – Poppy Parker – Baby, It’s You Chip

Hat: Mattel – Barbie Collectible – Frank Sinatara: The Recording Years

Necklaces: Me

 

Doll is a Rock Steady Romain, eyes, brows, facial hair, and shading by me.