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between human history with its constant churning and upheavals and series
of discoveries, defeats, progresses and declines, self-perfecting and self-
degradation and revivals, - and the very knowledge, wisdom and power any
of these gods and goddesses could at any time contribute to the destiny of
this world.
But in the case of Lord Ganesha, it is quite striking to assess the increasing
importance he has been holding in the collective consciousness, not as a
dominating figure but as an intimate and mostly friendly presence, a
protector and a bringer of auspicious tidings and a gentle, ever cheerful and
engaging company.
Nowadays, despite the general rush for the materialistic satisfaction of
multiplying counterfeit desires and wants, Lord Ganesha’s figure and benign
presence has been woven so intimately through the fabric of our daily lives
that one may often find him represented gamboling about with various
gadgets or reclining on a pile of cushions with his open laptop.
There seems indeed to be no other god who has undergone such a
continuous adaptive metamorphosis in the human collective consciousness.
In the case of past Avatars, whether Jesus, Buddha, Rama or Krishna, we
are inheriting a founding story or record of each of their incarnations and of
their deeds and what evolves is our interpretation and understanding of their
messages and teachings.
Perhaps the only other divine personality who has undergone comparable
changes is the Goddess Durga. In her case, the Mother even told of an
incident in which Durga, on the traditional yearly day of Victory over an anti-
divine force, had asked Her to share the experience of love for the Supreme
– something which, as a great goddess in her own right, she had never
known as yet.
But the gradual change and development of the status of Lord Ganesh is
unparalleled. His progression, besides, varied considerably according not
only to epochs but to regions, so that he may have been approached
simultaneously in very different manners and with very different
expectations.
Whether he stood as the Lord of the beings, leader of the troops, or as a
great king, or again as a watchful impenetrable presence in the vicinity of
the seven mothers of the olden days, carved in a running freeze almost as
an adjective to the main proponents depicted above, or else as the
intermediary to the nine planets; whether he was one to be propitiated
without fail lest obstacles and impediments would be placed in one’s way
forward, one’s venture, one’s commitment or even one’s quest, or whether,
from other approaches expressed in numerous striking slokas, he was