Ganapati
गणपति gaṇapati'Lord of the ganas', a title first of Shiva, master of the host, and then of his elephant-headed son Ganesha, whom Shiva appoints commander over the multitude and who is invoked at the start of every undertaking.
Where this term appears
- The Navagraha: The Nine Planetary Powers Deities
… of his verses, whose Sanskrit opening hails a "lord of the hosts," a ganapati , was later re-heard by a different age as a hymn to Ganesha.
- Who is Ganesha? Deities
… leader of the heavenly bands," "best lord of holy prayers." The word ganapati sits in the verse as a description, lord of groups, the kind of compound the Rigveda hands out freely to several deities.
- Eighty-five titles and no text: the Saura tantras and how a tradition disappears Lineages
…ects, Śaivas, Vaishnavas, sun worshippers, Shaktas and worshippers of Ganapati.
- From the margins to the Lord of beginnings Treatise
The word Ganapati , "lord of the hosts," does appear in the Rigveda, at 2.23.1, in a line still chanted today: gaṇānāṃ tvā gaṇapatiṃ havāmahe , "we call upon you, the lord of hosts." But read in its own context…
- Kin and cousins Treatise
A single transgressive god, with no kin and no parallel, might be dismissed as an aberration, a local oddity the tradition produced once and never repeated. Ucchishta Ganapati is the opposite of alone.
- Reading the body Treatise
To stand before Ucchishta Ganapati without knowing the language is to see a strangeness.
- The consort and the union Treatise
The union of Ucchishta Ganapati is one more instance of a language the whole tradition speaks.
- The diagram and the coiled power Treatise
Its grammar is shared across the tradition, and reading it for Ucchishta Ganapati is reading it as it is read everywhere.