Understanding Ganesha: Legendary Wise Hindu God who Removes Obstacles, Ensures Success

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Ganesha

Understanding Ganesha: Legendary Wise Hindu God who Removes Obstacles, Ensures Success

Ganesha is one of the most distinctive Hindu deities. His role is to remove obstacles and ensure success as well as creating obstructions for those whose ambition has become destructive. He is also the patron of travelers, students, commerce and new endeavors. Traditionally, all sessions of bhajan (devotional chanting) begin with an invocation of Ganesha with incantations such as Aum Shri Ganeshaya Namah (“hail the name of Ganesha”).

Although mentions of different qualities of Ganesha has existed for much longer, he appeared as a distinct deity in a recognizable form during the Gupta Period (c. 320-600 CE) of Indian history. He then went on to become one of the most prevalent Hindu deities in foreign lands through the development of new networks of exchange and money circulation throughout Asia in the 10th century CE. It was during this time that Ganesha became associated with traders who would pray that he would grant them success and remove obstacles in their path. This led to the spread of the worship of Ganesha into a wide variety of other cultures.

Statue of Ganesha

Statue of Ganesha (Sachinbatwal/CC BY-SA 4.0)


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